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In Memoriam

K. Dale Beernick 
1938 - 1969

Kenneth Dale Beernink was valedictorian for the John Muir High School class of 1956, 
in Pasadena, California. 
He entered Stanford University where he graduated in 1960, Phi Beta Kappa, qualifying 
for degrees both in biology and in music. Dale entered the Stanford Medical School in 1959, 
graduating in 1964. His program included a year, 1964, at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, France, 
doing immunological research. Dale started medical internship at Yale, and was married, both in 1965. 

In 1966, Dr. Beernink was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, until recently a disease 
fatal within a few years after diagnosis. Concurrently undergoing treatment, Dale returned to Stanford 
as a research fellow at the Fleischman Laboratories and the Department of Medical Microbiology.  
During those three years at Stanford he was surrounded by his wife, their child, his parents, colleagues, 
and friends. Dale continued to play jazz and other genres, built a harpsichord, and was a founding organizer 
of a local chapter for Physicians for Social Responsibility. 

Dale Beernink died in May 1969. 
 
Above text courtesy of Jack Truher

Jack Truher

Dale Beernink came to Altadena from his birthplace, Holland, Michigan, in 1951. 

Dale and I became friends and stayed in touch from Eliot Junior High through his
medical school years. At Eliot, I quickly learned to appreciate his insight and alertness
to our shared experiences. Dale seemed quite certain about his future as a physician. 
Few of us were that sure of our plans, if we had any to speak of.

Beyond academics, Dale was a gymnast, excelling in interscholastic competitions throughout 
high school on the gymnastics "horse". At Stanford, the future Dr. Beernink was captain 
of the gymnastics team in 1958. He was an advanced musical performer on multiple instruments.

Dale worked at odd jobs throughout high school and college whenever school was out, spending 
many hours at the Altadena Safeway Store, and later was with the California Water Project. 
He was on academic scholarships throughout all his Stanford years. 

After Muir, we went together to Stanford as freshmen with several other JMHS graduates. 
We drove together several times between Altadena and Stanford, with another of Dale's and 
classmates from John Muir High, Peter Kiers. As a Stanford undergraduate, Dale remained a 
fiercely devoted student. I knew that Dale had the talent, the drive, and the conviction to be 
a serious contributor in medical research. He might have chosen to remain a clinical physician, 
but I thought he would quickly be caught up in biomedical research. Once he told me of his 
enthusiasm for a classroom experience which explored what silicon-based life forms might be,
as opposed to the carbon-based life forms we know about. Dale worked very hard in college, for 
which I gently reprimanded him. He sometimes grew pale and frail from a lack of exercise or long 
nights of study as finals approached. Dale paid a stiff price for the academic achievement he 
demanded of himself.

While we shared what might seem a wry skepticism about human events, he knew he could make 
a difference. Dale was innately curious about everything. When he considered nature and the 
social order, he searched for context, history, and meaning. Dale was variously a humanist, an 
idealist, an empiricist, a humorist, a poet. Brilliant in school, Dale was on track to becoming a 
serious medical scientist.

Dale was an admirable contributor among his peers, coping both both with his illness and the 
many complexities of his chosen profession. 

During Dale's medical school years at Stanford, I was an experimental physicist at the 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I drove back to Stanford to visit Dale occasionally. 
He was easy to find on weekends in his laboratory. 

As a Yale medical resident, Dale wrote me cryptically that he was dealing with some serious problem, 
and would "need all the friends he could find." I was puzzled how to react; it was apparent he wasn't 
ready to share whatever his problem was. His shock and disappointment were evident. 

Dale had taken an early interest in cancer, long before his own affliction. Returning to Stanford, Dale 
struggled against his own illness with characteristic determination at the Stanford hospital. When in 
remission, he worked as a research fellow at Stanford. He founded the local chapter of Physicians for 
Social Responsibility. He wrote a little book, Ward Rounds, and left other poetry on his experiences, a
characteristic way he coped with the many difficult awarenesses he felt. 

His family arranged for a self-published, printed and bound version of several of Dale's poems for his friends. 
A number of these little books are still available. If John Muir graduates, friends of Dale, would like a copy, 
I may still be able to make arrangements for that. 

Dale died of his leukemia four difficult years after diagnosis, surrounded by his wife and child, and his parents. 

What follows is extracted from a current web site by a Canadian Professor, who may never have known 
Dale - but he found and values Dale's poetry, as described here: 

Kenneth Dale BEERNINK 
1938-1969 

This web writer describes the intro to Dale Beernink's little self-published book of poetry, Ward Rounds. 

Tragically, a year after he received his medical degree from Stanford (1965), Beernink developed 
chronic myelocytic leukemia. He worked as a research fellow at Stanford, and founded a local 
chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. It was during the enforced leisure of his illness 
that he wrote his poetry: "This was a time when my patients reappeared to me and I lived again 
in my mind all the many emotions we experienced together." 

POETRY - Ward Rounds (1970) http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1239.html
[1239] Hospital Haiku

Title : Hospital Haiku 

Poet : Dr K. D. Beernink 

Hospital Haiku 
          by 
Kenneth Dale Beernink


The new interns
Stiff in starched white suits.
The July heat!

Grinning into
The newborn nursery
A man holding daisies.

Screaming objections
In the hospital lobby--
A small naked boy.

All night below zero.
Today in the clinic
New complaints of chest pain.

Resting on the stairs
An old man with a large chest
And a cigarette.

Holding daffodils
Near the hospital florist--
An old woman, weeping.

Only one room is lit
In the hospital tonight--
And the August moon!

Beside this death bed
Two old men
Embracing.

From Ward Rounds, Washington Square East Publishers, Wallingford, PA, 1970. 

Kenneth Dale Beernink graduated from Stanford University Medical School, 
started internship at Yale, and was married, all in 1965. In 1966, he was 
diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, returned to Stanford as a 
research fellow. During three years at Stanford he continued to play jazz 
(and other genres), built a harpsichord, and started the Stanford chapter 
of Physicians for Social Responsibility. He died in 1969. 

I discovered this small book of poems when I was in medical school in the late 1970s, and found 
them very moving. Most of the poems in the book are quite long, and generate wonderful images 
of individual patients (or patient types). I thought I would start, however, by submitting these haiku, 
which portray gem-like moments in time that would be recognized by any nurse or physician who has 
trained in a general hospital. Although some of the descriptions and medical outcomes seem dated 
now (interns haven't worn starched white for many years), the images are timeless. 

If people are interested, I will submit some of Beernink's other works. 

Allen Finley, MD FRCPC Professor of Anesthesia and Psychology Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada 

Some audio by Jack Truher in year 2003 reciting a few of Dale Beernink's poems from his last years. 
These download as AIFF files, and are only for computer users with high speed internet connection. 

KDB/1KDB-PennyBrown5_3min.aiff

KDB/6KDB-CandyDenBlatt1_48min.aiff

KDB/7KDB-TheodosusBull1_11min.aiff

KDB/8KDB-JanieMcBride2_22min.aiff

Email Jack Truher

Webmaster's Note: For those who wish to contribute to this Memorial page, please send to: 
muirmustang1956@ix.netcom.com or esqeddie@ix.netcom.com

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