Professor Eric Otto Feigl M.D. died with his wife Polly at his side on April 1st after enduring Parkinson's Disease for seven years. Born in Iowa City in 1933, Eric grew up in Minneapolis, where he met Polly Bartholomew in high school. Six years later they were married on Polly's birthday. Eric earned his M.D. in 1958 at the University of Minnesota. He and Polly moved to Philadelphia for his work as an Intern at Philadelphia General Hospital. He had already decided to dedicate his career to cardiovascular research. Eric pursued post-doctoral research in the University of Pennsylvania Labs, followed by a year as a Visiting Scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, where Kurt was born in 1962. The family then settled in Bethesda, Maryland, where Eric served for two years as a Research Associate in the Heart Institute in the National Institutes of Health and as an Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. Son Mark was born in 1963. After five years as an Assistant Professor at Penn, Eric and the family of four moved to Seattle, where both Eric and Polly took positions as faculty members at the University of Washington in 1969.

Eric dedicated his 50-year career in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the UW Medical School to teaching and research. He believed that teaching was a noble calling and often said, "professors should profess." Over the years, he taught many of the physiology courses and led the major interdepartmental course on cardiology for medical students. Eric's research focused on the factors that control blood flow in the coronary artery. In collaboration with colleagues worldwide, he authored more than one hundred peer-reviewed publications. In 1969, Eric was awarded the First Annual L. N. Katz Basic Science Research Prize from the American Heart Association. His commitment to "hands-on" training in research is illustrated on AcademicTree.org, a web site which lists 17 scientists who directly benefited from Eric's mentorship in "the Feigl Lab."

Eric was a lifelong outdoorsman, starting on the lakes of Minnesota and developed in the mountains, lakes, and rivers of his beloved Pacific Northwest. He passed this passion for the outdoors on to his sons and grandchildren. His particular love in the final third of his life was ski mountaineering in the Cascades and western Canada, where he led and organized dozens of week-long trips that included skiers and friends from around the world, a tradition carried on to this day by his sons.

Eric is survived by his wife and lifelong friend of 73 years, Polly. They enjoyed a lifetime of classical music, outdoor "adventures," and travel. Together, they raised their family on Mercer Island and in Madison Park.

Eric is survived by his two sons; Kurt and his wife Ms. Sandy Eskrich, Mark and his wife Dr. Mary Brunette, and three grandchildren, Lisa Feigl, Ellen Feigl, and Grace Feigl.

Memorial services will be scheduled at a later date and limited to extended family.