Dermatology
1943-2015
Dr. Burgdorf was hired as the first Chair of the newly formed UNM School of Medicine Department of Dermatology in 1984, with a joint appointment in the Department of Pathology.
He obtained his M.D in 1969 from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison. Following dermatology residency at University of Minnesota Hospitals, he completed a dermatopathology fellowship with two world renowned physician scientists, Juan Rosai, MD, a surgical pathologist, and Robert Goltz, MD, a dermatopathologist. Together they pioneered a tumor detection process involving labeled monoclonal antibody stains.
Prior to his appointment as Chair of Dermatology at the UNM School of Medicine, Dr. Burgdorf served on the faculty at the University of Oklahoma. His career included clinical practice; pathological services; academic leadership; and medical writing, editing and translating. His writing included well respected dermatology and dermatopathology texts. His primary interests were dermatopathology, medical dermatology and pediatric dermatology.
Walter Burgdorf, MD - Wally - was a great friend of mine - we were hiking buddies - and we trapsed across the landscape of New Mexico. We hiked deep into the Jemez Mountains and afterwards went to the Jemez Hot Springs and sat in the warm waters with lots of old hippies with fantastical tattoos, gray beards, wrinkles, and sagging breasts - typical post-60s Hippie crowd. I was worried about hepatitis C and B from the contaminated water of the Hot Springs but it was the tree-leafed poison ivy that grew around the hot springs that got Wally - he had to take prednisone for 10 days to control the contact dermatitis. Wally, my brother Randy, and myself later hiked the Bisti Badlads by Grants, NM and saw the Ice Cave and went to Inscription Rock and saw the Native American figures and the signatures of the Spanish and later explorers. We also did the Sandia Crossing in one day - starting at Canyon Estates in Tijeras Canyon and after 26 miles of Mountain Crest ending up in Placitas, NM - afterwards having Blake’s Lotta Burgers with green Chile in Bernalillo, NM. Wally was born in Germany and his father was German and his mother was from the American South - my grandparents were also German - so Wally and I would speak German together all the time for practice - and sometimes with the pulmonologist Dr. Wolfgang-Schmidt Nowara. After Wally and his wife moved back to Germany - he asked me to be the medical decision maker for his mother who remained in New Mexico and was gravely ill in a private nursing facility in Albuquerque. I kept an eye on her and informed Wally of her condition until the end. Wally called me in 2015 that his arthritis was getting so bad he could not walk or hike anymore so he was riding a stationary bike for exercise. Three weeks later he died of an advanced brain tumor - a glioblastoma. Walter Burgdorf MD was a scholar, a veteran, a teacher, a mentor, and a friend. God Bless him, his family, and his memory. Keep walking in the Mountains, Wally, Old Friend!