As a teacher, Dr. Jack Culbertson trained hundreds of surgical residents during two decades as director of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Grady Hospital.
“Jack enjoyed teaching immensely,” said Dr. Grant Carlson, chief of plastic surgery at Emory University and Culbertson’s surgical partner for 22 years.
Culbertson had a unique practice in that he specialized in reconstructive surgery. “That’s something not every surgeon cares or feels equipped to do,” Carlson added. He gave a lot of patients hope, Carlson said.
John “Jack” Harrison Culbertson Jr., 62, of Atlanta died Monday in a crash of his light plane in Dawson County. A celebration of his life is scheduled at 3 p.m. Saturday at Peachtree Presbyterian Church. H.M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill, is in charge of arrangements.
Don Hart of Atlanta, a retired Methodist minister who will conduct today’s service, said he and Culbertson first met as patient and doctor.
“Jack treated me for merkel cell carcinoma, which required removing a part of my ear and my getting fitted with a prosthesis. He told me at the time his first responsibility was to save my life, not my ear,” Hart said.
The two struck up a friendship based on their mutual love of fishing, Hart continued, and thereafter swapped competing stories about their fishing exploits.
“Jack lived for the weekends, when he could hop in his plane and fly off to Colorado or Maine or wherever for his skiing, hiking and fishing adventures. He was a great outdoorsman and environmentalist,” Hart said.
Another surgical partner, Mark Walsh of Atlanta, said no matter how difficult a problem might be, Culbertson was capable of formulating “an elegant solution.”
Culbertson had a personality that spanned the generations, Walsh said. “He related with 20-year-olds as easily as he did with 70-year-olds.”
One of those residents he trained was Michael Golinko of Atlanta, who said, “Dr. Culbertson insisted that we residents call him Jack from the get-go.”
“I’ve never met a faculty member as humble, dedicated and as pure a spirit of joy and curiosity as he was,” Golinko continued. “He had a vast knowledge of subjects both inside and outside surgery. During an operation, he would seamlessly connect the subtleties of ear reconstruction with some work he once did in Africa.
“And after long cases,” he added, “it was not uncommon for Jack to take us out for sushi or pizza — and it was often in these informal meetings we were able to learn about life at large through his vast repository of experiences.”
Another surgical partner, Bert Losken of Atlanta, said that three times a year Culbertson would take a resident to Shiprock Northern Navajo Medical Center in New Mexico, spend a day seeing patients and perform surgery for three days. “Jack loved to help the under-served,” Losken said.
Culbertson is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Culbertson; his mother, Grace Culbertson of Morristown, N.J.; two daughters, Kirby Culbertson of Hartford, Conn., and Katharine Culbertson of Atlanta; a son, John “Jake” Culbertson III of Charleston, S.C.; and two sisters, Marian Burke of Watch Hill, R.I., and Katharine Prentice of New York City.
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