Albert L. Rhoton Jr. was a man of God.
The internationally renowned neurosurgeon is credited with building up UF Health Shands Hospital’s neurosurgery department. He attended the First Lutheran Church in Gainesville for 44 years.
On Feb. 27, neurosurgeons from around the world, including Japan, Australia and Turkey, attended a celebration of Rhoton’s life at the church. He died Feb. 21 from metastatic cancer. He was 83.
“He would say regularly that everything he did was for the glory of God,” said Eric Rhoton, 56, his son.
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Albert Rhoton was born in a log cabin in rural Kentucky, Eric said. Growing up, he would wake up with snow on his blankets that filtered in from the holes in the walls.
He attended a two-room school and was the first in his family to go to college, Eric said. While at a summer camp for disadvantaged boys, the dean of Washington University’s School of Medicine saw potential in Rhoton. He graduated from the school in 1959.
In 1972, Rhoton came to UF Health as a professor of surgery and chief of the Division of Neurological Surgery. His two sons and two daughters attended UF’s College of Medicine.
At home, Eric Rhoton said his sisters would call their 6-foot-2 father “The Gentle Giant” for his kind demeanor. Eric said his father was an inspiration.
“The main message at home was to find a passion for something and then to work your hardest,” he said.
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Weeks before he died, he would ask his wife, Joyce, to drop him off at his microsurgery lab at UF Health. He retired 10 years ago, his son said.
“He was doing chemotherapy that would wipe him out — he could barely walk — but he still wanted to go in,” Eric said.
His dad ran almost every day to stay healthy and would challenge his colleagues and friends to push-up contests to prove he wasn’t old.
“His body was really weak in the end, but his mind was still clear,” he said. “His last words were, ‘Let me go.’”
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His father got the most joy from teaching others, his son said.
He traveled the world, spreading his knowledge of neurosurgery from shacks in Nicaragua to courses in Israel, where he was transported by a convoy of armed vehicles, he said.
Alice Rhoton-Vlasak said her father was grateful to help the UF Health Department of Neurosurgery become what it is today.
“He did feel like it was all a blessing that he had some God that allowed him to have the life he had,” the 52-year-old said.
Contact Melissa Gomez at mgomez@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @MelissaGomez004.
From left: Alice Rhoton-Vlasak, Joyce Rhoton, Albert L. Rhoton Jr., Albert Rhoton, Eric Rhoton and Laurel Rhoton-Selner pose for a photo at Mohonk Mountain House resort in New Paltz, New York.
