Roger Moister Desprez ’51


Roger Moister Desprez ’51 died on August 28, 2009, of renal failure at home in Nashville, Tennessee. Born and raised in Chicago, Roger came to Dartmouth after two years in the military. He then completed the combined college and medical school, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1954. After internships and residency at New York Hospital he worked for the Indian Health Service, directing the Fort Defiance Tuberculosis Sanitarium in New Mexico. He returned to New York Hospital as a fellow, instructor and later assistant professor of medicine in Nashville’s Veterans Administration Hospital in 1963, becoming its chief of medicine. For 32 years he cared for patients as he supervised and mentored medical students, residents and physicians. He also was a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University. After retirement in 1995 and in spite of the onset of macular degeneration he returned to Vanderbilt in 1996, when he joined the school of nursing as a clinical professor of nursing and preceptor at Vine Hill Community Clinic. Through the last 13 years of his life he worked daily at the clinic, mentoring dedicated nurse practitioners as he collaborated with them in the care of patients. Throughout his career in the medical and nursing schools he received multiple honors for his research, teaching and mentoring. He was preceded in death by daughter Sarah and son Walter. He is survived by his wife, Patsy, children Roger, Edward, Patricia, Julia and Eleanor and eight grandchildren.