Jay Kasner, MD: Devoted Doctor and Mentor

The career of Jay Kasner, MD, had many similarities to those of many addiction medicine physicians and fellow ABAM Diplomates. Born in 1942 in Minneapolis, he loved hockey—and eventually Wisconsin Badger hockey—as much as anyone. Finishing high school in the Eisenhower administration, he joined the Army, did well as a med tech, and was promoted for an appointment to West Point, but he wasn’t interested in that. He attended the two-year medical school at North Dakota, and for his clinical years he continued at the UW-Madison. He was a Badger then for the rest of his life.

Jay was a nuclear medicine physician who was one of the 10%: an excellent physician hit with that complex disease called addiction. He was treated locally by Dr. Roland Herrington—but his disease didn’t go quietly into the night. Roland referred him to Dr. Doug Talbott in Atlanta, and thus began three decades of continuous sobriety and recovery. He worked part-time as Medical Director of the detox unit at Methodist Hospital in Madison (where I ironically relocated in 1989, not overlapping with Jay) and part-time in his primary specialty, serving on medical staffs in Milwaukee and Madison. When Charter Hospital opened up several locations in this region, they found Jay Kasner to be their addiction doctor. Certified by ASAM but not a psychiatrist, he led the inpatient dual diagnosis unit in Milwaukee that took referrals from throughout the state—including from me. Addiction docs learn psychiatry because they need to, and call on psychiatric consultants to help as the case demands. Jay did it all: inpatient detox, inpatient rehab, IOP. And when Charter devolved, Rogers Memorial Hospital purchased the facility, and Jay began 15 years as a member of the Rogers medical staff. Jay was known to few in ASAM: like many, he was certified in the 1980s, but his devotion was to the patients who needed him, and he worked almost every day, rarely attending ASAM conferences and taking only one brief vacation per year. He was the one in the trenches, meeting the needs of people who otherwise would not have had a knowledgeable doctor to be there for them.

Roland Herrington’s proteges in Addictive Disease Medical Consultants were under contract at Rogers and several other hospitals, but eventually their careers took them in other directions. As they left and Rogers recruited a new medical director for their flagship residential program, the Herrington Recovery Center in Oconomowoc, Jay answered the call, assuming the attending physician responsibilities for the HRC while continuing to lead three IOP programs in three different counties. The new recruit was me, and thus began a six year professional relationship and a wonderful friendship. Jay continued to attend most of the patients as I continued my national activities with ASAM, ABAM and the AMA: Jay was the stalwart. His patients loved him. All the staff loved him. He was a caring and skilled doctor, always even-tempered and affable, always positive, with a wonderful sense of humor almost as dry as that of his wife of 36 years, Dr Joanne Carpentier-Kasner, DVM. Jay was my travel partner to two Rose Bowls and to The Big House (thanks, Andrea Barthwell!) and to East Lansing and Iowa City. Lincoln and Columbus were on the horizon. One could not have a better work colleague or friend. He was “grandfathered” among the initial 2000+ Diplomates of the American Board of Addiction Medicine and bought all the editions of ASAM’s textbook. He read up when he needed to, and loved discussing cases after we became partners, and it was funny how my signature (as an ABAM Director) was on his certificate on the office wall down the hall. He was so loyal to his patients, to his specialty, to his employer, to his spouse and his brother—and to me. The men and women physicians who embrace that person who is a pariah to everyone else, even at times to doctors and nurses, and who any time of the day or night will see that person with addiction who needs quality and compassionate care: you had a steady and quiet colleague up in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Roland Herrington and Doug Talbott and Dan Angres would vouch for that. Jay passed away peacefully and quite unexpectedly in his sleep on January 2, 2016. It is a passing that should not go unnoticed.