Dr. Eric M. Fine, a retired pediatrician and Baltimore County Health Department official, died of complications from a fall May 13 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The Mount Washington resident was 82.
Karl Fugelso, a professor of art history at Towson University, was both a friend and Dr. Fine’s teacher.
“I had known Dr. Fine for years socially before he took my courses, and I always found him to be a warm, thoughtful empathetic man who undoubtedly brought not only a keen mind and much learning to his patients but also a wonderful bedside manner,” Mr. Fugelso wrote in an email.
“Warm, funny, kind, thoughtful, centered, and inquisitive, he was the whole package, a true Renaissance mensch in an era when we could use, but are not likely to find, many more like him,” he wrote.
Eric Michael Fine, son of David Fine, a gas station owner, and Gertrude Fine, a secretary, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and when he was a toddler, the family moved to Mount Rainier, near Hyattsville, Prince George’s County.
He was a graduate of Northwestern High School in Adelphi and attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he obtained an associate’s degree in 1963.
“He never earned a bachelor’s degree and entered the University of Maryland Medical School on a full tuition scholarship,” said his wife of 54 years, Ricky Scherl, who retired as director of major gifts from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“He was brilliant, a visionary and knew how to plan,” Ms. Fine said. “When he was growing up, they called him ‘The Brain.'”
After earning his medical degree from Maryland in 1967, he completed a pediatric internship at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, in 1968, and a residency in the discipline in 1970 from the University of Maryland Medical School.
After serving as chief resident in pediatrics at Maryland for a year, he obtained a master of public health from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, now the Bloomberg School of Public Health, in 1972.
From 1972 to 1975, he was chief of the pediatric service in the Army Medical Corps at Camp Zama in Japan.
Discharged with the rank of major in 1975, Dr. Fine became division chief of infant, child and adolescent health services for the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, now the Maryland Department of Health.
From 1983 to 1984, he was acting director of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Preventive Medicine Administration until being appointed director that year, a position he held until 1987.
Dr. Fine was then named assistant director of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s AIDS administration.
From 1993 until his retirement in 2007, he was bureau director for child, adolescent health and reproductive health for the Baltimore County Department of Health.
Dr. Fine lectured widely on sex education and was a lecturer at the Bloomberg School for Public Health. In addition, he was an assistant professor in the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine.
He was the author of numerous articles on comprehensive child health care in Maryland, including the challenges of herpes in newborn children.
“He retired when he was 65 but he always longed to earn a college degree,” Mrs. Fine said. “He was a talented artist and enrolled at Towson, where he studied art and design.” Dr. Fine fulfilled his dream in 2012 when he became a summa cum laude graduate and earned a bachelors’ degree in fine arts.
Mr. Fugelso described Dr. Fine as an “outstanding student” who excelled in surveys of post-medieval art and “such specialized topics as Baroque art and architecture.
And while Dr. Fine disclaimed his writing ability, Professor Fugelso wrote “his term papers were models of close, detailed research, brilliant analysis, ingenious, insightful extrapolation, and clean, clear logic. Moreover, they were always highly articulate and often quite eloquent.”
Mr. Fugelso also praised him for being an example for his fellow students.
“He was always on time, attentive, and participatory, with a thoughtful, generous approach that gave room for others to converse and never came across as competitive, much less unduly aggressive or domineering,” he said.
As a practicing artist, Dr. Fine worked in a variety of mediums and was even a sculptor.
“He did it all,” his wife said.
He was also an informed conversationalist who enjoyed talking about painting, architecture, music, theater, politics and current events.
“And seemingly all other areas of human endeavor,” Mr. Fugelso wrote.
Dr. Fine was a member of Beth Am Congregation and its choir.
Funeral services were held May 15 at Sol Levinson & Bros. in Pikesville.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Dr. Joshua Fine, of North Laurel; a bother, Dr. Jared Fine, of Walnut Creek, California; and a niece. A daughter, Dayna Fine, died in 2021.
![By HILLEL ITALIE NEW YORK (AP) — Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail” and other acclaimed films whose work on “Chinatown” became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles, has died. He was 89. Towne died Monday surrounded by family […]](https://www.baltimoresun.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Obit_Robert_Towne_33638.jpg?w=525 "By HILLEL ITALIE NEW YORK (AP) — Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail” and other acclaimed films whose work on “Chinatown” became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles, has died. He was 89. Towne died Monday surrounded by family […]")
