The Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology community is mourning the loss of Dr. Danny Ghazarian who passed away earlier this week.
Dr. Ghazarian obtained his MBChB. degree from the College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, in 1981. He obtained his PhD (Thesis title: The biochemical pathology of liver cell injury and liver cancer in the rat with choline deficiency) in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pathology, University of Toronto, in 1993. He then entered the Residency Program in Anatomical Pathology in LMP, acquiring his Fellow of The Royal College of Physicians of Canada (FRCPC) in 1996. A Fellowship in Dermatopathology in the Division of Dermatology at the University of Toronto then followed.
He was recruited to the Pathology Department in the University Health Network (UHN) as a dermatopathologist and was the first pathologist to become the Site Lead of the Melanoma and Skin Oncology Site at Princess Margaret Hospital.
Danny was appointed as faculty in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology in 1998, becoming a Full Professor in 2015.
Danny was known in LMP as an excellent diagnostician and teacher. He received many teaching awards such as the Wightman-Berris Academy Award in 2002/2003, and held the position of Director of Education, Laboratory Medicine Program, at UHN.
He loved teaching and taught at all levels in the department. He created the ‘Best Teacher Award’ while he was a resident in 1996. Struck by the dedicated, enthusiastic teaching delivered by the staff, and wanting to acknowledge this in a formal manner, he decided to honour the best teachers every year. The first recipient of this award was Professor Dean Chamberlain, with the latest being Dr. Zaid Saeed Kamil awarded in June this year. This award persisted as the “Best Teacher” award until 2004, when it was renamed the Danny Ghazarian Resident Teaching Award.
Dr. Ghazarian’s reach was felt widely as he held membership in many societies, such as The Canadian Association of Pathologists, United States and Canadian Academy of Pathologists, International Society of Dermatopathology, International Sentinel Lymph Node Society, United Kingdom Clinical Society of Pathologists, Arthur Purdy Stout Society, Royal Society of Medicine/ United Kingdom, and Armenian Canadian Association of Medical Professionals.
