Judson J. Van Wyk, M.D.: his life and legacy.

Judson J. Van Wyk, M.D. died peacefully at his home on June 22, 2004 after a relatively brief illness. By his side were Persis, his wife and soul-mate of 60 years, his children, Judy, Peter, Perky and Jake, and his six grandchildren. During his 83 years he led an extra-ordinarily full life devoted to his passions, his family, his work, and sailing. He was an active academician until weeks before his death. For those in basic science who knew him through his scientific publications, he will be remembered for his seminal contributions to our understanding of human growth and as a pioneer of growth factor research. Clinicians also knew him for his many contributions to our understanding of endocrine diseases in childhood. Here, at the University of North Carolina (UNC), School of Medicine, he was an institution. Ask generations of medical students and residents whom he recruited for rounds at two in the morning, whom he taught with out-sized, and sometime outlandish, anecdotes intended to drive home a salient clinical point, or whom he encouraged, and indeed cajoled, into careers in academic medicine and then supported throughout their careers. To those he trained in the Division of Pediatric