Charles Bryan Smith

Salt Lake City, Utah-Charles Bryan Smith died peacefully at home on December 23, 2024, at the age of 88 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a kind, accomplished, generous, empathetic, principled, and wonderful man. His death will leave a hole in the hearts of those he touched, and his legacy lives on in the lives and memories of his family, friends, and colleagues.

Born on July 23, 1936, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, he grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Childhood summers in Montana sparked his desire to move West. His formative years after medical school were spent in service at the National Institute of Health in Maryland and the Boston City Hospital.

In 1969, Chuck left the Boston area and took his young family to Salt Lake City where he traded his love for the ocean for the wilderness of the Utah mountains and the redrock desert. He was a lifelong avid sailor and most in his element on board a boat handling the tiller and trimming the sails, including a trans-Atlantic trip in his 40s. He spent most of his life hiking, camping, canoeing, fishing, hunting, and sharing the outdoors with friends and family.

His children were raised in the Church of The Wasatch where $5 daily Snowbird passes, homemade lunches, and chilly dill pickles eaten on the slopes were required family activities on Sundays. Although deeply committed to his work, he was a model for being able to step away from those responsibilities and dive fully into time exploring and appreciating the outdoors with his children and grandchildren, including decades of gatherings at the family cabin in Teasdale, Utah.

He was a selfless and generous leader of organizations. In Utah, he was hired to start the Department of Infectious Disease at the University of Utah Medical School where he loved teaching and mentoring students, residents, interns, and colleagues, and built an enduring culture of expertise, compassion, and service. Mid-career, he moved across the street to serve as Chief of Medicine at the SLC Veterans Hospital, where he was devoted to improving the quality of medical care for veterans and supporting the lives and careers of doctors, nurses, and staff. In the last phase of his career, he was Dean of the Medical School at the University of Washington and Chief of Medicine of the Veterans Hospital system in Seattle. He cared deeply that quality health care was accessible to all.

He found ways to integrate medical research and clinical practice, publishing numerous articles on clinical medicine and co-authoring a book on Medical Ethics. He never stopped reading medical journals. After retiring in the early 2000s, he trained medical students and worked on the front lines with those affected by HIV-AIDS in Eldoret, Kenya.

He is survived by his sister, Susan (Rick) Johnson; his wife of 65 years, Judith Ferries Smith; his four children, Jennifer, Douglas (Mary), Emily, and Benjamin (Lindsey); 10 grandchildren, Charlie (Megan), Oliver, Amy, Ezra, Rose, Grace, Sam, Anton, Eloise, and Elliott; and 1 great grandchild, Theo – whose positive outlook and zest for life carries Chuck’s energy into the next generation.

We are so privileged to have known him. A memorial service will be scheduled at a later date. For those who wish to remember him through a gift, the family encourages donations to the following organizations whose work exemplifies Chuck’s values:

ACLU utah: https://www.acluutah.org/give

SUWA: https://secure.suwa.org/

Save Our Canyons: https://saveourcanyons.org/donate-soc