Contributed by Joel A. Pearlman MD, PhD, FASRS
Dr. Reece Landers is sitting in his usual spot directly in front of the speaker at the Squaw Valley Retina Symposium. His silver mane of hair is slicked back, and he is fidgeting in his seat next to his longtime friend, cohost, and co-conspirator, Rob Wendel, MD. The snow is gently falling outside on the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains.
All eyes are fixed on the speaker, Lee Jampol, MD, a world-renowned authority on uveitis, who is finishing up a thorough exposition of the difference between white dots and white spots. Undaunted by the complexity of the topic, Reece draws a parallel between multifocal choroiditis and punctate inner choroidopathy, which most of us missed, but he is excited about the next talk on diabetic retinopathy. He feels that our current management, sophisticated as it is, may not be quite right and that we all might be missing the point by obsessing about VEGF, which is just acting downstream of the real pathology (hypoxia).
Reece was always an out-of-the-box thinker, ready to challenge the status quo, always encouraging young creative doctors, and, in his gentle way, never allowing us to be blinded by our own underlying assumptions. He was perhaps the most peripatetic ophthalmologist since Tadini in the 18th century—serving as the chief of multiple retina services, working in private practice for a while, and traveling the world both teaching and learning, which to him were really the same thing.
Reece invented new ways of seeing the retina; his multiple eponymous lenses and keratoprostheses have become the quotidian tools of our specialty. He helped pioneer numerous ways of treating the retina, including laser photocoagulation and fluid-air exchange, which we now take for granted. Reece encouraged a young Dr. Rob Wendel and his colleague, Neil Kelly, MD, to pursue their cure for macular holes at a time when such treatment was exceedingly controversial.
For nearly 6 decades, Reece trained innumerable fellows, residents, and medical students, creating a worldwide network of friends and experts. And he put on hilarious skits at the Squaw Valley Symposium that would be the pride of Kirk Packo, MD.
In his “retirement,” Reece enjoyed life at his home on a lake in Lakeland, Tennessee, where he could pilot his own pontoon boat across the water and his golf cart around his property, both styled with racing decals and #43 in honor of his favorite NASCAR driver, Richard Petty. Reece never lost his insatiable curiosity and delight in connecting with so many people for whom he cared so much.
He is survived by his wife, Wendy Marbury, his 3 children, David, Kathleen, and Diana Landers, and his 5 grandchildren. For those of us who learned from Reece Landers and loved him, the world of retina is so much richer for his contributions and irresistible enthusiasm. Heaven just received one of the greats.
