Dr. Sanford Spraragen, 95

TENAFLY, N.J. – Dr. Sanford Chester Spraragen passed away on June 12, 2023. Born in Schenectady, New York, to an engineering family, the younger of two brothers, he was determined to make his own mark. As a no-hitter pitcher at Scotia High School, he was recruited by the New York Giants but chose to attend college, having been offered a full scholarship to MIT. After one year of college, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed in Germany joining the occupation forces.

There he befriended a Hungarian couple who were Holocaust survivors. He wrote to his father, to help sponsor their immigration to the U.S. They became part of his extended close-knit family, as “cousins” along with the wife’s lovely mother.

Upon returning to MIT, he changed his major to biology, to the disappointment of his prominent engineering Spraragen uncles William and Lou. His father, Benjamin Spraragen, an electrical engineer, was not entirely against it. After graduating from MIT, he received a master’s degree in Radiation Biology from the University of Rochester, and went on to the University of Rochester School of Medicine, from which he earned an M.D. in 1956.

He was a health physicist at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady and did his internship in medicine at Tufts University-Boston City Hospital. Following residencies at the New England Medical Center in Boston and Jersey City Medical Center, he worked as a research and medical associate at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Dr. Spraragen became an assistant professor of medicine at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, where he received a grant to research foam cells in heart disease.

From 1964-1972, Dr. Spraragen was chief of Nuclear Medicine at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. He was a clinical associate professor of Radiology at Downstate Medical Center and continued his research, employing early applications of nuclear medicine diagnostics, particularly in the areas of hypertension, and atherosclerosis.

In 1954 he married Barbara Lee Fox, also of Schenectady. The couple had four children and moved to East Greenwich in 1972. Dr. Spraragen was named director of the new division of Nuclear Medicine at The Miriam Hospital in Providence. He enjoyed teaching medical students as a member of Brown University’s clinical faculty.

In the 1980s, he opened his own private nuclear medicine practice in Providence. Board certified in internal medicine, Dr. Spraragen believed it was important to examine each patient himself and elicit a pertinent history before performing the scheduled nuclear test. Beloved by his patients, his protocols were not always appreciated by insurance companies or hospital administrators.

As his private practice proved too costly to maintain, Dr. Spraragen continued his work in nuclear medicine at the V.A. Hospital in Providence. In retirement, he enjoyed playing the trumpet and volunteered as a docent at Roger Williams Park Zoo. He was proud to have become a Rhode Islander and even became a Red Sox fan. He warmly welcomed visiting relatives and friends to his home in East Greenwich, to partake of Rhode Island’s landmarks under his guidance. He was especially delighted when his grandchildren would visit.

A generous man and physician, Dr. Spraragen would never hesitate to answer the call “Is there a doctor in the house?” He donated to various charities and humanitarian causes, including Hadassah and the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society, in honor of his wife who predeceased him in 2018. He is survived by his children David, Lisa, Susan, Joseph, and his nine grandchildren.