Dr Terrence (Terry) F. Rutherford, 1929–2026

Dr Terrence (Terry) F. Rutherford died on 30 January 2026, after a short illness related to complications following treatment for Hodgkin disease.

Terry was born in Birch Hills, Saskatchewan, on 25 November 1929. He attended medical school at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1956. Following a rotating internship at the former St. Joseph’s Hospital in Victoria, he spent 5 years as a medical officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, including 1 year of training in general surgery at the Lancaster Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital in New Brunswick. He completed further specialty training in pathology at the Department of Pathology at the Winnipeg General Hospital in 1967.

Terry joined the medical staff at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver in 1968, assuming responsibility as the associate head of the Department of Pathology and assisting in establishing a modern clinical laboratory in the hospital’s newly built Providence wing, which opened in April 1983.

Terry transitioned into the primary leadership role as chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in 1983, a role he held until 1993. During this decade, Terry guided the laboratory through many challenges. The list is long, but highlights include modernizing the laboratory management structure, providing clinical and research support in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, facilitating the relocation of the UBC Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory to St. Paul’s Hospital, and protecting the laboratory budget from fiscal restraints in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Throughout his tenure as chair, Terry continued in his clinical role as a diagnostic surgical pathologist and educator until he retired in 1995.

Terry devoted a great deal of time and energy to St. Paul’s Hospital. He enjoyed working with others—technologists, students, pathologists, and clinical colleagues—and often helped his junior colleagues by lightening their clinical load. He was a generous person who freely gave his time. Terry was an active medical leader. Over the years, he served as chair of the hospital’s Medical Advisory Committee, as president of its Medical Staff Association, and, in a provincial role, as president of the BC Association of Laboratory Physicians.

As a skillful administrator, Terry’s abilities were often tested by the sometimes-fractious egos both within and outside the laboratory. He was particularly adept at making meetings as succinct and painless as possible through judicious use of the question “Does anyone have anything to say that hasn’t already been said?” During the summer, Terry wisely avoided holding Friday afternoon meetings and, whenever possible, finished all necessary work early enough to drive to his family cabin on Shuswap Lake, always a sanctuary from hospital-related stress.

After retirement, Terry regularly kept in touch with many hospital colleagues and often attended laboratory social events. He was a supportive, warm, and humorous person who was fun to be around. Terry will be missed by his wife, Anna, and his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and many friends.
—Douglas Filipenko, MD
Vancouver