Rick also didn’t care about politics and wouldn’t mince words when he thought something might negatively impact patients or trainees. Upon his departure from Washington University (WashU), there was a palpable void in the department. Fortunately, at the time of his death, he had identified another wonderful opportunity outside of WashU, where he would again have the chance to enjoy patient care and teaching.
“While clinical work and training took up most of his attention, Rick also had tremendous scholarly capabilities,” Dr. Miner adds. “Even though he wasn’t a physician-scientist, he was extremely supportive of scholarly work, including bench research—and he understood basic science. He was also a great writer, who wrote as well as any physician-scientist or clinician investigator.”
With Compassion for All
Lacey Feigl-Lenzen, fellowship program administrator in the Division of Rheumatology and clinical coordinator of the Washington University Lupus Clinic, knew Dr. Brasington for 15 years. “I think he is probably the most caring person I’ve ever known. I was only 19 when I began working in clinic with him at the front desk. He was one of those people who paid no attention to whether you were a doctor, staff or patient—Rick treated everyone with respect. He had a quick wit, and he knew he could make you laugh.
“At one point, I was his patient, so I got to see the care and attention that he gave to people who came to him for help,” continues Ms. Feigl-Lenzen. “He took a lot of time to talk to me, which is so unusual given medicine’s current environment where you are allotted only 15 minutes with each patient. He was very aware that some of his patients had no support at home and he wanted to try and make up for that in some way.
“Through his behavior, such as staying longer for appointments or covering when a colleague was ill, Rick taught me about true compassion. He went the extra mile to help ensure that the people who worked with him and those in his life were taken care of.”
Wayne Yokoyama, MD, is the Sam J. Levin and Audrey Loew Levin Chair for Research of Arthritis, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Rheumatology at WUSTL. Dr. Yokoyama first met Dr. Brasington in 1979 while at the University of Iowa.
“Rick joined the University of Iowa for a rheumatology fellowship, where I was already a fellow. He aspired to become an academic, research-oriented rheumatologist, but when that didn’t work out, he became an outstanding clinician and developed outreach rheumatology clinics at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin,” says Dr. Yokoyama.
