Additional Baer condolences.(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)

Please forward my condolences to Dr. Baer's family. I wrote to him several times and was always amazed at his quick response with great information. I was shocked to hear of his passing--I had just sent in another question and learned then that he had just passed away the week before. It stopped me in my tracks and sent me into a lot of reflection about myself, my laboratory career, and my interaction with fellow human beings. Dr. Baer was a great person--a great teacher through his "Tips" column--and although I never met him, I can tell he had a great sense of humor and was a person who really cared about other people and doing the right thing.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

--Enid Deibert

Marshall Medical Center Laboratory

Placerville, CA

I must add my condolences to his [Dr. Baer's] family. I am another "old school" tech who is always looking for updated and or correct ways to do things. Sometimes a new tech, or new to us, anyway, comes in and questions the way we do things. That is a good thing. If I could not find an adequate answer from other resources, I turned to Dr. Baer. He never indicated that questions were stupid, or [never asked], "How come you do not know that already?"

I am sure he knew that he was a "go-to" resource to resolve questions. His answers were always well-researched, thought-out, practical. If he did not know, he said so. Rare! And he always got back to me immediately. If he did not have a ready answer, he promised to research it. I was amazed when I got a final answer to one of my questions months later. He also called in other experts to contribute to the conversation.

We will miss him. MLO is one of the best respected, timely, useful lab journals. I, too, always looked forward to Dr. Baer's comments and cut them out and used them as adjunct to our policies and procedures.

I wish Dr. Karon the best of luck.

--Deb Troutman MT(ASCP)

Laboratory Manager

Edmonds Family Medicine Clinic/PSFP

Edmonds, WA

Editor's note: We sent out our first notice about Dr. Baer in our April 2009 LABline e-newsletter, and published "In Tribute to Dan Baer" in our May 2009 print edition on p. 12 in The Observatory section.

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