Thomas Stamm, MD World Service Endowment

Dr. Thomas Stamm was born October 26, 1904 in Chicago. Dr. Stamm came from a medical family; his grandfather, Andreas Stamm, and his father, J. Charles, were practicing physicians in Chicago. He attended Loyola Academy from 1918-1922 and earned a BA from Loyola University Chicago in 1926. After receiving his masters in English from St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1930 he taught English for several years at St. John’s College in Toledo, Ohio and at Chicago’s Leo High School.

Dr. Stamm earned his medical degree from Loyola University in 1946 and completed an internship at Cook County Hospital in Chicago in 1947. He and his wife, Katheryn, were married later in that year and had one son, Thomas Mark. Dr. Stamm served in the military at Valley Forge General Hospital and attained the rank of captain, Medical Corps. Upon his honorable discharge in 1949 he pursued post-graduate training in ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and Cook County Hospital, which he completed in 1951. He established a home and private practice in Elmwood Park, Ill. and joined the department of ophthalmology at Loyola in 1952 as an instructor. He was an active and respected member of the faculty and performed the first eye surgery in Foster G. McGaw Hospital when it opened in 1969.

During his career Dr. Stamm served as the president of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society from 1965-66. He was recognized during his career for distinguished medical service and in 1973 received the President’s Award at Loyola University’s Founders Day. In 1979 Dr. Stamm was awarded the Stritch Medal of the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, honoring his work with Dr. James McDonald in the foundation in 1962 of FOCUS, Inc. (Foreign Ophthalmological Care from the United States). Through this organization, physicians donated their time providing eye care to countries with few or no ophthalmologists. Haiti was the first country to accept these services; Drs. Stamm and McDonald, together with Dr. Arthur Light and their wives, serviced the first clinic in 1962 at Port de Paix on the north coast of Haiti. During the ensuing years, FOCUS provided eye care in Guatemala, Columbia and Nigeria and continues the work begun by Dr. Stamm and his colleagues.

Dr. Stamm resigned as a full-time member of the Loyola faculty 1989, continuing in a part-time capacity until his retirement in 1996, when he was granted the rank of clinical professor emeritus. He remained a friend and colleague until his death on July 25, 1997. He is survived by his wife Katheryn and son, Thomas Mark.