William Joseph Reals, MD, died November 12, 2002, at the age of 82 in Wichita, Kan, a community in which he had lived for 52 years and where he had served as a community pathologist and medical school dean. Dr Reals was a Renaissance figure in the community and had a wide variety of interests including pathology, academic medicine, and the arts.
Dr Reals was born in 1920 in Hot Springs, SD. He received his MD from Creighton University in 1945 and remained at Creighton for his residency in pathology.
Beginning with his service as a medical officer in the US Air Force (1951–1953), and later in the Air Force Reserve, Dr Reals became an authority on the pathology of aircraft accidents and authored several scientific papers on this subject. He participated in the investigation of many aviation accidents. Notable among these was the 1970 crash near Silver Plume, Colo, of an airplane transporting the Wichita State University football team, coaches, and administrative staff. A total of 31 people were killed in this crash. Another was the 1977 collision, fatal to 583 persons, of 2 commercial jet airliners in Tenerife, Spain. His purpose in these and other investigations was to gather and correlate information that would be useful in improving aircraft safety. In recognition of his contributions to aerospace safety, Dr Reals received the Harry G. Moseley Award from the Aerospace Medical Association in 1971. From 1953 to 1980, Dr Reals was an officer in the US Air Force Reserve and was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in 1972.
A leader of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), Dr Reals served as a member of the Board of Governors (1964–1969) and later as president (1971–1973). He played a major role in the development of the CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program, an accomplishment in which he took great pride. He advocated for uniform and rigorous standards in pathology residency programs. During an interview in 1985, Dr Reals opined that the existence during the 1940s and 1950s of numerous 1- and 2-year pathology residency programs, often unaffiliated with medical schools, created an impression that the specialty did not have high standards. This, he believed, made pathology unattractive to many of the best-qualified medical school graduates. Dr Reals worked to improve this situation as a representative to the American Board of Medical Specialties and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. He also championed high standards in his work as a trustee of the American Board of Pathology from 1973 to 1984. In 1974, Dr Reals was named the CAP Pathologist of the Year, and in 1982 he received the ASCP/CAP Distinguished Service Award.
He was the director of laboratories at St Joseph Hospital in Wichita for 32 years and served the hospital as vice president for medical affairs from 1973 to 1980. In 1980, Dr Reals was appointed dean of the Kansas University Medical School–Wichita, a position from which he retired in 1990. Creighton University presented Dr Reals with the Alumni Achievement Citation in 1986.
Dr Reals also was an accomplished art photographer whose talents were described as “… having the Ansel Adams–like ability to look at a scene and see the photograph hiding in it.” His interests in the visual arts have been memorialized by the creation of the William J. Reals Gallery of Art at the Kansas University Medical Center–Wichita. The Reals gallery has 2 components: one displays the works of local artists in various media (watercolor, photograph, acrylics, and sculpture), and the other features the work of medical students, faculty, and staff, and includes exhibits of historical interest. Dr Reals was a lifelong student of genealogy, an effort that culminated in the writing of The Reals Family Descendants of Gottfried Ruhl (1681– 1759). In addition, Dr Reals edited The Poems of Alice Henry Boone, which contained poetry written by his wife's grandmother.
He is survived by his wife, Norma, 5 children, and 18 grandchildren.
