Jack Scobey, RIP

On Monday I took my daughter swimming. About 45 minutes after we left the swimming pool I started having a severe allergic reaction. Over the next couple days it turned into the worst allergic attack I’ve ever had — a lot like a mild version of anaphylactic shock. I finally dragged myself into the university health center to get a steroid prescription to try to get this under control.

The sad thing was that almost by accident I learned that the psychiatrist I’d seen a lot as a student had died suddenly over the summer. Jack Scobey was only 43.

He died in a boating accident. He was vacationing on a houseboat and fell overboard sometime around midnight into waters that were 100-150 feet deep. Despite extensive search and rescue efforts, his body was never recovered.

After the death of my father, I started experiencing intermittent anxiety attacks, and I met with Scobey probably 50 times over the span of a couple years to treat them. Scobey was very nice but also very geek-ish (in the best possible sense of that term). He always spoke in this odd monotone and had a strange sense of humor.

My anxiety attacks eventually went away, and it had been five years since my final meeting with him, but it’s very odd to think of him as dead. He was way too young to die.

6 thoughts on “Jack Scobey, RIP”

  1. Thank you for wrting this post about Dr. Scobey. I, too, was a patient of Dr. Scobey while at WMU. I loved your recall of his memory [“Scobey was very nice but also very geek-ish (in the best possible sense of that term). He always spoke in this odd monotone and had a strange sense of humor.”] and made me smile through my current tears. I remember him in this way as well. I used to call him ‘Jackers-Smackers” and/or refer to him as “the polyester king’ with a dorky haircut and dorky ties. I miss the guy as he was such a major player in my return to wellness. Cheers.

  2. Jack and I were best friends and Co-Chief residents at UC Irvine in the mid 80s. We had way too many wonderful and fascinating experiences as students of the great art/science of psychiatry, and as dear friends, to adequately put in words.
    Jack had a naturalness about him that put special magic to being genuine. Jack was devoted to his girls and to his beautiful wife Deb. What a duet of brains, beauty and simple goodness; Jack and Deb!
    I will always keep a part of his amazing spirit in my heart. I miss him terrible and I thank God that I knew and loved him.

  3. Today is the 12th anniversary for losing my brother Dr Jack Scobey. I miss him so very much and feel lucky to have so many great memories to reflect on. I feel his connection often but mostly when I find myself unable to hold in a laugh. He was a man that enjoyed life, laughing, working hard and Michigan football! :o) More than anything, he loved his wife, Deb and their three sweet girls. I am thankful for having such a wonderful brother who led by example and always had my back.

    1. As a 15 year old in 2000, I remember my dad and his rescue squad colleagues on Lake Cumberland searching for Dr. Scobey. Twenty-three years later, I still find myself thinking about his family often, hence my searching his name today. My dad brought it home with him a lot at the time, including folks in prayer with our family. As a now 38 year old adult, I still think about the Scobey family from time to time.

    2. My name is Tom Hess. I became friends with Jack when we worked at IRDC and lived together before he went to Med School. I was a good friend of Jack’s and stood in his wedding. I have lost touch with his wife Deb and would love to talk with her about Jack. My email is ‘[email protected]’. If anyone has contact information about Deb could you please share. Thanks

  4. Jack was a colleague of mine at WSU School of Medicine. We were on a couple rotations together which, like most of med school, we thoroughly enjoyed. He was friendly, and had a nice sense of humor and that professional sense of class, almost gone these days. He was also, we must remember, an accomplished person. His very early death was tragic.

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