Crowell Beard, MD

Crowell Beard is renowned as one of the three major founders of Oculoplastic Surgery. His career accomplishments include helping found ASOPRS, developing Oculoplastics as a specialty, authoring the first definitive textbook on ptosis, training many of the second generation of Oculoplastics preceptors, and developing the eponymously named Cutler-Beard staged bridge flap. 

Beard was one of three sons of J. Edgar Beard and Mabel Crowell Beard. The Beards were an early pioneer family in the Napa Valley and co-owners of the Thompson, Beard & Sons mercantile store in Napa.  Crowell was born in Napa, California, on May 23, 1912.   He attended the local schools in Napa for his early education and, as a member of a musically talented family, learned to play the violin.  Following his father’s pathway, he attended the University of California at Berkeley, initially studying Chinese, economics, and statistics before changing his major to pre-medicine. At UC-Berkeley Crowell transitioned from playing violin to playing the banjo on a weekly half-hour radio show in Berkeley.

Byron Capleese Smith was a renowned pioneer in Oculoplastic Surgery. Born in Tonganoxie, Kansas, in August of 1908, he received his B.A. and M.D. from the University of Kansas in 1931. Early in his career, he trained in psychiatry at Topeka State Hospital from 1931-34.  Knowing his personality, I suspect that he quickly realized psychiatry was not his calling. Byron continued on to New Haven Hospital, completing a residency in general surgery in 1938. Finally, he completed a two-year residency in ophthalmology at The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1940.

 For the Love of the Game...

SASOPRS: I understand that you’re a big baseball fan. When did your interest in baseball begin?

Richard: My interest in baseball began when I was about seven years old.  My first baseball game I attended was in 1963 at the old Polo Grounds. The Mets were playing the Cardinals that day, and, of course, lost. I began collecting baseball cards.  In those days, we would put the cards in the spokes of our bicycles, use them to "color", trade, etc. I remember attending about 20-25 NY Met games a year at Shea Stadium with my father who was a Deputy Chief Inspector in the NYPD.  My father commanded half the precincts in Brooklyn.  We would go on "rounds" after the game and officers in the precinct stood up and saluted him when he entered.  We would then go to either Peter Luger Steak House or Crisci's restaurant for dinner. I remember car rides with my dad. We would talk about current events and other topics and really "bond." 

Senior American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (SASOPRS) is two years old. It was started of a concern for the needs of ASOPRS members who have contributed much over the years to ASOPRS but who are sometimes forgotten as they age or feel they don’t fit in with the active clinicians.