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.

Upon graduation, Crowell enrolled at the University of California School of Medicine, from which he graduated in 1939.  Subsequently, Crowell pursued his ophthalmology residency at the Mayo Clinic from 1940 – 1942.  After residency, Crowell returned to San Francisco, joined a private practice in ophthalmology and assumed a teaching position at UCSF. 

Initially, Crowell was exempt from the WWII draft because of a minor physical defect, but later, in 1943, as the US involvement in World War II intensified, the Army changed course and pronounced Crowell “fit for medical service.”   After basic training at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, Captain Beard received was assigned to the Dibble General Hospital in Menlo Park, CA, where he reported to his chief of ophthalmology, Dr. Phillips Thygeson. 

By 1944, the U.S. Army had designated nine general hospitals in the U.S. as centers for the definitive treatment of plastic surgical and ophthalmological casualties.  It was at those hospitals that Army ophthalmologists Alston Callahan, Norman Cutler, John Bellows, Byron Smith, Sidney Fox, John Converse, Crowell Beard, and others (e.g., Dr. Lester Jones, Captain, USN) treated complex orbital, eyelid, and adnexal injuries. From this experience they acquired surgical expertise significantly greater than could be acquired in a civilian environment.  Because plastic surgery was in its formative years and the supply of plastic surgeons was insufficient, the Army plastic surgeons were relieved to have the ophthalmic plastic surgery managed by ophthalmologists.  During these war years, this inter-specialty management of challenging ocular, eyelid, and orbital injuries created a new knowledge base and spurred innovative techniques, from which the subspecialty of Oculoplastic Surgery was to evolve.  This vast wartime surgical experience coupled with Dr. Beard’s humility, compassion, courage, energy, dedication, and surgical genius were instrumental in the creation of Oculoplastic Surgery as a definitive Ophthalmological subspecialty.

After WW II, Beard returned to San Jose, CA, and began an ophthalmology practice with his former chief, Dr. Thygeson, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship.  Beard concurrently opened a private practice in Reno, Nevada, to which he travelled weekly (prior to the development of Interstate highways), first by car and later by plane, which he piloted.  At about the same time, Beard accepted an invitation from Dr. Frederick C. Cordes to join the faculty of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of San Francisco, where he served with distinction for 41 years.   

Crowell attributed the initial 20^th Century interest and capability in oculoplastic surgery to Dr. John Wheeler of New York and Edmund B. Spaeth of Philadelphia, U.S. Army ophthalmology veterans of WWI, and Dr. Wendell Hughes, a Canadian ophthalmologist understudy of Dr. Wheeler.  After WWII, Dr. Hughes organized a group of former World War II Army ophthalmologists to assist him in teaching courses in oculoplastic surgical techniques at AAOO Annual Meetings. 

Prior to the founding of ASOPRS in 1969, there were only informal oculoplastic fellowships (or preceptorships), and Crowell Beard’s fellowship was one of the early ones.  The Beard Fellowship became the Quickert - Beard Fellowship when Dr. Marvin H. Quickert, as the beneficiary of Dr. Beard’s oculoplastic teaching during his eye oculoplastic surgery training, began his private practice in San Jose in the late 1960’s and joined the UCSF ophthalmology faculty.  After Dr. Quickert’s untimely death in a scuba-diving accident in 1974, Drs. Earl Rathbun, John Sullivan, and James Langham, all “Beard Fellows,” collaborated with Dr. Beard as joint preceptors in sustaining the Q-B fellowship (also affectionately known as the “Freeway Fellowship,” because of the involved freeway commutes to preceptor’s practices in Santa Rosa, San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco).  Subsequently, the Quickert - Beard Fellowship has trained over forty ASOPRS surgeons and future fellowship directors including, notably, Drs. Robert Dryden, Richard Anderson, Bernice Brown, Richard Collin, and Christine Nelson.  Richard Collin, formerly a consultant surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, was instrumental in the formation of the European sister organizations of ASOPRS, the British Oculoplastic Surgery Society (BOPSS), and the European Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ESOPRS).

I can attest that, during my fellowship year (1982-3) and one of his final years as chief preceptor, Crowell still demonstrated enthusiasm and boundless energy during clinical and surgical sessions, unsurpassed clinical and surgical expertise, and provided intensive, appropriate, constructive criticism of my attempts at duplicating his mastery in oculoplastic surgery.  He was a tough, but fair taskmaster, insistent and dedicated in providing the ultimate in patient care and exemplary mentorship.  His encouragement and support of his fellows were enduring, as was his affection and genuine friendship.

During his illustrious career, Dr. Beard authored the groundbreaking textbook Ptosis (now in its 4th edition) and coauthored with Marvin Quickert Anatomy of the Orbit. Beard authored over twenty-three book chapters and published over thirty-six journal articles (twenty-one as sole author).  He chaired the ASOPRS Thesis Committee from 1971 – 74 and served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Archives of Ophthalmology, and Annals of Plastic Surgery.  Beard presented hundreds of lectures, including five named lectures.  He received the Lester Jones Surgical Anatomy Award, Clinical Service Faculty Award from the UCSF Medical Center, Senior Honor Award of the AAO, Commander’s Award for Public Service at Letterman Army Hospital (1964-1984), and the prestigious Lucien Howe Medal from the American Ophthalmological Society.

Crowell Beard was married to Gertrude for over fifty years until her death. They had two daughters and one son, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  Crowell died on 10 May 2003 at age 90 in his San Jose home and is survived by his second wife, Fran Beard, and her daughter Jeanne, as well as his children and their families.