Barbara Haining Suczek

Barbara Haining Suczek A member of a nationally recognized team of researchers who in the 1970s developed a ground-breaking critique about how health care providers fail the chronically ill, has died. Dr. Suczek, 90, died Feb. 23 at the Lafayette home she shared for more than 50 years with her husband, psychologist Robert F. Suczek. He died 16 months earlier. Dr. Suczek, who worked with renowned sociologist Anselm Strauss at the University of California, San Francisco, was part of a group that focused on chronic illness as the predominant reason patients seek medical help, according to another team member, UCSF sociology professor, Carolyn Wiener. The research was conducted "at a time when it had not yet become obvious that the old 'acute care' model of health care required re-thinking, as medical professionals and patients faced illnesses that could be 'managed' but not cured,' " said Wiener. Dr. Suczek's research with the group looked closely at how the work of physicians, nurses and hospital technicians had been radically changed by a patient population of the chronically ill and the technologies developed to help them. This study was concerned with the experiences of those who do the work of managing these illnesses - including the patients themselves and their families. Dr. Suczek was particularly engaged by the unacknowledged and frequently invisible management work that families do. Her subsequent research with the same team was one of the earliest studies of health care policy related to AIDS, results of which highlighted deficiencies in the health care system. Dr. Suczek was proudest of her teamwork with Professor Strauss, but she earned perhaps her greatest colloquial fame as the author of a 1972 sociological analysis of the rumored death of Beatle Paul McCartney. Published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, the article examined the social construction of mystery. Following her groundbreaking UCSF research work, Dr. Suczek embarked on a counseling career, working first at the Berkeley Mental Health Center and then as a mediator at the Alameda County Family Court Services. She was already in her seventies when she was hired by the court. She loved the work and retired only after her husband became seriously ill and needed home-care. "Dr. Suczek was someone who met people with both her heart and her mind," said Dr. Mary Duryee, Director of Family Court Services for Alameda County. "She carried herself with a dignity that lifted the entire interaction." Dr. Suczek was born Barbara Haining in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on March 14, 1917. After WWII she moved to the Bay Area with her husband, where she worked at home raising their four children. A woman of radiant energy and intellectual curiosity, she was decades ahead of the trend in returning to college when her children grew older. In January 1967, just before her 50th birthday, she earned a B.A. in sociology from UC Berkeley. She went on to earn a doctorate in sociology from UC San Francisco in 1977 - when she was 60. She is survived by her daughter Christopher Anne Suczek; sons, Peter, Thomas and William Suczek; two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. A Memorial Celebration is being planned and memorial material posted at www.barbarasuczekwake.blogspot.com.
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle on 3/14/2008
[ A deep thanks to Sarah, and Chris for painstakingly preparing and arranging for the publication of this obituary.]