Dr. Robert Darroff became a pioneer in the field of neuro-ophthalmology, serving as chief of staff at University Hospitals in Cleveland.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dr. Robert Daroff’s aptitude for medicine manifested early. When he was just 8 years old, he felt a pain in his abdomen, which he correctly diagnosed as appendicitis. Daroff became a pioneer in the field of neuro-ophthalmology, serving as chief of staff at University Hospitals in Cleveland.
He died on Jan. 12 at the age of 88. Dr. Daroff was born in New York City in 1936, the eldest of three children. His parents were May Wolin Daroff, a sculptor and painter, and Charles Daroff, an executive of a family-owned menswear company called Botany 500. “Daroff was a household name among people who followed the clothing industry,” said his son, William Daroff.When Daroff was a teenager, the family relocated to Philadelphia. Daroff loved to play baseball and worshipped the Yankees. As a teenager, he worked as a beach attendant on the Jersey Shore. At the age of fifteen, Daroff enrolled at the University of Chicago, in a program for high school students. While there, his roommate was Carl Sagan, who eventually became a famed scientist. “He said that Sagan was the smartest person he ever met,” William Daroff said. Daroff and Sagan corresponded for the rest of Sagan’s life. Daroff got his high school diploma from the University of Chicago and went on to college at the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in American civilization. He served as the editor-in-chief of the Daily Pennsylvanian. In that capacity, he interviewed high level officials of the Eisenhower administration. “He was responsible for getting the paper out every day and supervising all the editors,” William Daroff said. He continued at the University of Pennsylvania for medical school, where he met his wife, Jane. “They met at a phone booth,” William Daroff said. “My father was on the phone and my mother was patiently waiting. My father’s lab partner, who was behind my father in line, started up a conversation with her. When he found out my mother was Jewish, he thought my father would be interested, since he was Jewish as well. My father started pursuing my mother and eventually she agreed to go out on a date with him. After their first date, my mother told her parents that she had met the man she would marry.” Daroff did his internship at Philadelphia General Hospital. He followed that with a residency in neurology at Yale University. “He picked neurology because it was a hard science,” said his son, Robert Daroff. “He was intrigued by the infinite mystery of the brain. It was not a mechanistic specialty. It required finesse and imagination and creativity. And there was so much to be discovered because so little was known about the brain.” After his residency, Daroff joined the United States Army Medical Corps. He trained at Fort Knox and was deployed to Vietnam. “He could have avoided going to Vietnam,” said his son, Charles Daroff. “But that was out of the question. He believed it was his civic and patriotic duty to defend his country.” While serving in a combat zone in the jungle, Daroff managed to write a peer-reviewed article on cerebral malaria. For the rest of his life, he worked as a neurologist for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “He had over fifty years of VA service,” said Robert Daroff. “He always let the patients know that he was a fellow veteran. It really meant a lot to him to give back to his brother and sister veterans.” After the army, Daroff completed a fellowship in neuro-ophthalmology at the University of California San Francisco. In 1968, he was recruited by the University of Miami’s medical school. He became a professor of neurology and ophthalmology and eventually became the school’s youngest tenured professor. “He was a pioneer in the field of neuro-ophthalmology and was seen as one of the first founders of the sub-specialty,” William Daroff said. In 1980, Daroff came to Cleveland and became the first chairman of the Department of Neurology at Case Western Reserve Medical School and University of Hospitals of Cleveland. “He started the department,” William Daroff said. “He built up its faculty and residency program and transformed the department into a world-class center for neurology.”After serving as chairman of Neurology Department for thirteen years, Daroff became chief of staff of University Hospitals and associate dean for CWRU Medical School. “It’s a reflection of how much respect his peers had for him, as a leader, a clinician, and a scientist, that he was elected to these leadership positions,” Robert Daroff said. Daroff lent his name to three major contributions in the medical field: the Kearns-Sayre-Darof syndrome; Daroff’s sign; and the Brandt-Daroff exercises. The latter is a procedure of postural movements that treats vertigo. “Millions of people in the United States have been advised to practice the Brandt-Daroff procedure to treat their dizziness. It’s incredibly effective,” Robert Daroff said. Daroff served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine Neurology for a decade. He co-authored Neurology in Clinical Practice, which is now in its eighth edition. He was elected president of the American Neurological Association and the American Headache Society. “He was responsible for building a field of headache study within neurology,” William Daroff said. Daroff was ahead of his time as an activist for LGBT rights. In 1985, he supported his wife when she formed the first Cleveland P-FLAG chapter. “He was instrumental in helping to change the non-discrimination policy to be more inclusive of LGBT employees and students,” Robert Daroff said. “My father did things not for fame, or glory, or money. He did things he felt it was right to do. That was one of his guiding principles,” Charles Daroff said. “Whether his patient was royalty or some world luminary or an average Joe, he treated everybody with the same respect and dignity that people deserve, regardless of who they were.”Daroff was a family man. “Notwithstanding the fact that my dad worked as hard as anybody I’ve ever known, every night, the five of us had dinner together,” Charles Daroff said. “It was something that was inviolate. My dad was an educator, a scholar, a true Renaissance man. Every day he asked us what we learned in school that day. He was just fascinated with learning and education and instilled that in all of his children and grandchildren.”“He upheld values as an honorable man who sought to make the world a better place through working individually with patients, and working generally on research. Literally millions of people have been helped because of his scientific know-how and care,” William Daroff said. Daroff is survived by Jane, his wife of sixty-five years, his children, Charles, Robert, and William, and his brother, Stephen. He is predeceased by his sister, Tracy. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our
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