Obituaries

-- Patricia Sullivan

Stanislaw K. ToczekNeurosurgeon

Stanislaw K. Toczek, 84, a neurosurgeon in private practice and at Georgetown University Hospital for almost 40 years, died of congestive heart failure March 5 at his home in Glendale, Calif.

Dr. Toczek came to the Washington area in 1964, set up a practice in Arlington County and served briefly as chief medical officer in neurosurgery at D.C. General Hospital. In 1968, he became clinical associate professor in neurosurgery at Georgetown, where he worked until his retirement in 2002. He also was a consultant to the National Institutes of Health. He moved from Alexandria to California in 2003.

He was born in Haczow, Poland, and survived World War II as a youngster. After the Russians occupied Poland, he was warned to leave his home town, so he moved to Wroclaw in the western territories. There, professors and staff of the University of Lwow re-created the university, known for its high academic standards, at the University of Wroclaw, where Dr. Toczek received his medical degree. He studied neurosurgery in Warsaw, where he received a specialty certification.

He worked five years as an adjunct professor in the Warsaw Academy of Medicine's neurosurgery department and in 1960 received a Rockefeller Foundation postdoctoral fellowship to the University of California at Los Angeles. Warned not to return to Poland because of politics, Dr. Toczek taught and consulted in San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif., before coming to the Washington area.

He was twice president of the local chapter of the Friends of John Paul II Foundation.

Survivors include his wife, Ariadne Toczek of Glendale; two children, Dr. Maria Toczek and Andrzej Toczek, both of Glendale; and two grandchildren.