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Obituary

Noted neurosurgeon and USF professor

By CRAIG BASSE
Published July 23, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - A half dozen years into his practice, young Dr. John M. Thompson came face to face with a medical crisis - and a political coverup.

It was the summer of 1962 and an epidemic of St. Louis encephalitis had broken out in Pinellas County. At the time it was the second-worst outbreak of its kind on record in the country.

Hoping to protect the economy and tourism, the county downplayed the epidemic, reporting the death toll at 14. Dr. Thompson later confirmed in published research that 43 people had died.

The panic lasted from July to September and became a national news story. Both the St. Petersburg Times and the New York Times published evidence of a coverup.

"I was snowed under with patients here," Dr. Thompson recalled in a 2001 interview. He said he saw 75 percent of the more than 200 cases.

Dr. Thompson, one of St. Petersburg's first neurosurgeons, died Thursday (July 21, 2005) at St. Anthony's Hospital. He was 81. Until this year he was a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of South Florida School of Medicine and trained neurosurgical residents at Tampa General Hospital.

A Tampa native, John Morgan Thompson attended Hillsborough High School and was a cadet colonel in the school's ROTC. He went on to serve in the Navy in World War II. In the Korean War, on loan to the Army, he served as a general surgeon in MASH Unit 8225 on the front lines.

He was 17 when he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack changed his generation, he said.

"Everybody my age was very much changed by the announcement of Pearl Harbor, because we knew we were at war," he said during a 2001 speech in St. Petersburg. "At that time, there was tremendous patriotism. Men and women, boys and girls were very patriotic at that time. Many of my classmates were killed in the war."

Dr. Thompson, who practiced in St. Petersburg for more than three decades, was elected chief of staff of the American Legion Hospital for Crippled Children, a predecessor of All Children's Hospital, in 1964.

He also served as chief of staff of All Children's and Bayfront Medical Center. He was on the staff of St. Anthony's Hospital and was a consulting neurosurgeon at Bay Pines VA Medical Center. He retired from private practice in 1991.

Dr. Thompson received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1948. He also held a bachelor of science degree from Tulane University. He was a National Research Council fellow at Johns Hopkins for a year and interned at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor.

Later, he became a member of the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School.

A former president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the Florida Neurosurgical Society, Dr. Thompson was a diplomat of the American Board of Neurological Surgery and a member of the Pinellas County and Florida medical societies and the Pan American Medical Association. He also was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

He was a member of Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, the Tampa Bay Committee of Foreign Relations, St. Petersburg Yacht Club and St. Petersburg Rotary Club.

Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Dorothy G.; a daughter, Dr. Lauralee Thompson, Los Angeles; a son, Dr. John T., Baltimore; a sister, Mary Nash, Tampa; and two grandchildren, Lauren Thompson and John M. Thompson, both of Baltimore.

Friends may call from 2 p.m. to service time at 4 p.m. on July 31 at the E. Dale Gunter Funeral Home, 4100 16th St. N. A private burial will be at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.

The family suggests memorial contributions to St. Anthony's Health Care Foundation, 1200 Seventh Ave. N, Suite 116, St. Petersburg, FL 33705, Bayfront Health Foundation, 701 Sixth St. S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, or the David W. Cahill, M.D. Endowed Professorship through the USF Foundation, University of South Florida Health Sciences Development Office, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MDC 70, Tampa, FL 33612.

- Information from Times files was used in this obituary.

[Last modified July 23, 2005, 00:52:10]