John Aure Buesseler

John Aure Buesseler, M.D., Emeritus Founding Dean of the Medical School and Emeritus Founding Vice President for Health Affairs and Health Sciences of Texas Tech Health Sciences University, in Lubbock, Texas, died on March 7, 2013 at the age of 93 years.

He was born on September 30, 1919, to John Xavier and Gerda Aure Buesseler of Madison, Wisconsin.  He married Cathryn Anne Hansen of Waupaca, Wisconsin, on December 26, 1959.  He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree with Honors in 1941 and a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1944.  He ranked third in his class and was elected to the academic medical honor societies of Sigma Sigma (Wisconsin) and Alpha Omega Alpha (National).  He attended the Harvard University Graduate School of Medicine in Ophthalmology and the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Medicine in Ophthalmology in 1947 and 1948, and served as a Resident Physician in Ophthalmology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, 1948-1951.

He was in private practice of Ophthalmology in Madison, Wisconsin, for six years where he performed the first human corneal transplant in that city and, reportedly, in that state.  He was appointed Founding Chief of Ophthalmology at the University of Missouri Medical Center in Columbia in 1959.  While at the University of Missouri, he also attended its Graduate School of Business and Public Administration and earned the degree of Master of Science in Business Administration in 1965.  While on sabbatical leave in 1966 from that institution, he attended the Cornell University Graduate School of Business and Public Administration where he studied for a Ph.D. degree (all but dissertation) in Business and Public Administration.  He served as Executive Director of Kansas City General Hospital and Medical Center in 1969-1970 in the establishment of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine.