“He is a legend at Grandview. He was a wonderful surgeon,” said Kelly Fackel, vice president for development with The Grandview Foundation. “He was an awesome teacher. He trained generations of surgeons at Grandview.”
Dr. Posevitz established the first vascular laboratory in Ohio at Grandview and brought vascular laser surgery Ohio and surrounding states. He served as a clinical professor in the department of surgery at Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University and the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine. He taught physicians in southwestern Ohio and the tri-state area about the laser and its use in vascular surgery.
Dr. Posevitz also seved as program director for a vascular surgery fellowship. A fellowship in vascular surgery has been named in his honor through The Grandview Foundation.
“He wanted to be a doctor since he was a child,” said his son, Anthony Posevitz, of Oakwood. “He was a loving, caring family man and had a really good sense of humor. He was very good at giving great advice.”
Dr. Posevitz’s daughter, Cica Young, of Texas, remembers her father as being caring and compassionate to family and patients alike.
“He always made you feel like you were the most important person in the room,” Young said.
She said her father was looking forward to getting back to work despite his illness, but his plans changed when he learned Nov. 24 that the cancer had spread to his liver. At the time of his death, he was running the vascular lab at Grandview, Fackel said.
Dr. Posevitz was married to wife Gabriella for 38 years. The two met in Hungary, from where Posevitz escaped in 1956 at age 15. Dr. Posevitz and his father had been freedom fighters during the short-lived Hungarian Revolution. The Soviet Red Army, which had occupied Hungary after World War II, squelched the uprising. Dr. Posevitz came to America in 1957 and graduated from the former Roosevelt High School and the University of Dayton before attending medical school in Chicago.
Posevitz is survived by his wife, two sons, one daughter, a son-in-law, and two grandchildren.
Funeral services will be 10 a.m. Saturday at the Lutheran Church of Our Savior, 155 Thruston Ave., Oakwood.
Walter Ohlmann knew Dr. Posevitz for more than 20 years as his surgeon, friend and fellow director of the Florida Bank of Commerce.
“He was just a phenomenal human being,” Ohlmann said of the man whom he credits with helping to save his life after surgery for an embolism in 2001. “He was a very warm person,” Ohlman said.