Dr. Donald Schuster

Dr. Donald Sylvan Schuster of Madison passed away on March 7 at the age of 92.  Don was born at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison on November 1, 1927, to Hyman and Rebecca (Lewis) Schuster, both Jewish immigrants who settled in Madison.  Don graduated from Madison West High School in 1944 at age 16.  He entered the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1944, and received a BA degree in pre-med in 1948 and finished Medical School at UW in 1951.  Don interned and had six months of Internal Medicine residency at the Ohio State Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.  At that time, Don enlisted in the Air Force due to the Korean War.  After training, Don was selected to attend the School of Aviation Medicine in San Antonio.  He was assigned to Smokey Hill AFB in Salinas, Kansas where he was the flight surgeon and achieved the rank of Captain.  It was at Smokey Hill that Don’s interest in Dermatology was initiated.  Don had his first year of Dermatology residency at UW with Dr. Sture Johnson and completed the next two years of his residency at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  He scored second in the nation on the Dermatology Board Examination.

Don wanted to experience the West Coast and worked at the Sherwood Trimble Clinic in Culver City, California for two years.  He then became a full time instructor at Stanford University in Palo Alto as well as Chief of Dermatology at the Palo Alto VA Hospital for the next two years.  At that time, Don wanted to be his own boss and started his own private practice in Madison in the fall of 1962.  He practiced Dermatology here for the next 58 years, becoming the longest practicing physician in Madison history.  Don was also a member of the UW Dermatology Department, holding the rank of Associate Clinical Professor during this period.  He loved teaching and twice received the Dermatology residents award.  He was a Past President of the Wisconsin Dermatological Society and was a member of the American Academy of Dermatology and the Noah Worcester Dermatological Society.  Don believed Dermatology was his destiny and the patients always came first.

Don married Judy Plotkin and was the proud father of Attorney Steven Schuster and the loving grandfather of Justin and Mitchell, both current students at UW.  Don later happily married Sue Renard in 1991.  Don is survived by his wife Sue, his son Steve and daughter in law Wende Schuster, his grandsons Justin and Mitchell, and by his nephews James, Michael  and Robert Shapiro, the children of his sister Nadine Schuster Shapiro who died in 1993, and Irving Shapiro, who died in 2006.

Don retired in 2019 because of medical problems.  Madison was his hometown and Don was pleased to be a physician on Madison’s west side for 58 years.  Don was a dedicated golfer, but never perfected the golf swing.  He was an amateur etymologist, frequently consulting the dictionary for word pronunciation, derivation and definition.  Don loved to read, particularly the golf books of P.G. Wodehouse and the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  He also knew hundreds of jokes and, by his words, was pretty good at telling them.  Don was a loyal and dedicated Wisconsin Badger fan, and had football season tickets for over 50 years.  Don was a member of Blackhawk Country Club, where he twice won the President’s Cup, Madison West Rotary, and Temple Beth El. A funeral service will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 10:00 AM and Temple Beth El, 2702 Arbor Drive in Madison. A visitation will be one hour prior. Interment will immediatly follow the service at Forest Hill Cemetery. Donations in Don’s memory may be made to the Temple Beth El Rabbi’s Fund.