Eric L. Radin

September 14, 1934 to April 26, 2020

Eric Radin had a full, vigorous, and inspired life. He was a world-renowned orthopedic surgeon and medical academic of the highest order, a loving friend, a passionate sailor, a proud father
and grandfather, and, most of all, a master storyteller and humorist.

Eric was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1934 and went on to graduate Amherst College in 1956 and Harvard Medical School in 1960. Eric began an illustrious career as an orthopedic surgeon and as an instructor at the Harvard Medical School and Boston-area hospitals, including Beth Israel Hospital, the Mount Auburn Hospital and Children's Hospital. He went onto many other appointments, including most notably Chairman of Orthopedic Surgery at West Virginia University, and Director of the Bone and Joint Center at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, before ending his career as an adjunct Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Tufts Medical School. Along the way, he was a visiting scholar at Oxford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, and even the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. He was active in the highest leadership of international orthopedic societies. Dr. Radin published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and leading books and textbooks on joints and joint replacement, osteoarthrosis, functional anatomy, and musculoskeletal biomechanics. His research was regarded as a significant contribution on the biomechanics of joints and their link to osteoarthrosis.

While practicing in the Boston area, Eric met and ultimately married his beloved wife, Tove. They lived in Newton Centre and had three daughters, Alison, Melissa, and Jessica. At that time, Eric developed a passion for sailing and began sailing from the Beverly Yacht Club in Marion. Even after his practice took him outside of Massachusetts, he kept a summer home in Marion, where he enjoyed sailing in Buzzard's Bay and beyond — typically up the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia (once even circumnavigating Newfoundland) and twice to Bermuda. In 1999, Eric retired to Marion where he continued to be active in orthopedics and continued to sail, typically logging about 180 days a season. Alzheimer’s disease robbed him of his independence, and he spent his final days of his life at Stone Senior Living in Newton. Ultimately, he lost his life to the stormy seas of COVID-19.

Eric loved to tell stories, joke with an infectious laugh and had a remarkably wide circle of friends who he kept from every phase of his life; since high school and his college fraternity, his medical community, and the Marion community. In Marion, he was a popular member of the Freemasons, where he was a fraternal Brother of the Pythagorean Lodge and Past Master in 2005. He was especially fond of drinking gin-and-tonics with all of his friends and even named one of his sailboats Tanqueray.

Eric was predeceased by his wife, Tove. Eric is survived by his ex-wife, Crete Boord Radin of Marion, and his three daughters and sons-in-law Alison and Greg Kibler of Los Angeles, Melissa and David Goldstone of Newton Centre, and Jessica and John Peters, of Newton Centre; and his grandchildren Tove, Emma, and Lily Goldstone; and Hannah, Noah, and Olivia Peters. They all wish him fair winds and following seas.