This year’s holiday party honored a beloved colleague, husband and father – Dr. Daniel Pieper who passed away in May of 2015. He left behind his beloved colleagues and his wife Donna, his children Stephanie, Lindsey, Brett, John Paul, and Michelle. His family is the ultimate legacy, the loving husband and father.

His fellow physicians at Michigan Head and Spine Institute, the staff he worked closely with for several decades and colleagues throughout Beaumont Hospital and St. John Providence Health System continue to grieve at the loss of a friend. Dr. Perez-Cruet, on behalf of these colleagues shares, “Dan will forever be in our hearts and on our minds – he’s made an indelible mark on each of us personally and professionally. He was an extraordinary neurosurgeon, husband, father and friend.”

As many of his colleagues share, he was an outstanding neurosurgeon who positively changed the lives of his patients. He was one of a very few of neurosurgeons in the United States who through his expertise for treating peculiar and complicated brain tumors, created techniques and developed instruments he used to treat these difficult tumors. He’s left a legacy of medical expertise to his students and fellow neurosurgeons.

Dr. Pieper also changed the lives of many individuals in foreign countries, particularly the mission trips to the Davao City, Mindanoa, in the southern Philippines. Judith Hack, his long-time nurse and co-pilot on these trips shares there was a great need for neurosurgical/craniofacial assistance for the repair of Meningioencephaloceles, which is a congenital facial anomaly. Dr. Pieper donated his time and skills so that these patients would not be forced to live with severe facial disfigurement.