Dr. Leland Rickman of UCSD, an expert in infectious disease who helped the county prepare to fight bioterrorism after Sept. 11, died Tuesday while on a teaching mission in southern Africa.

"He was a quintessential teacher and clinician, with expertise in areas too numerous to count," Dr. Kenneth Kaushansky, chairman of UCSD's Department of Medicine, said yesterday. "He will be missed."

Dr. Rickman, a resident of Carmel Valley, was 47.

He was in the African nation of Lesotho with Dr. Chris Mathews of UCSD, the director of the university's Owen Clinic for AIDS patients.

Mathews told colleagues at UCSD that Dr. Rickman had complained of a headache and had gone to lie down. When he didn't appear for dinner, Mathews checked on him and found him dead. A cause has not yet been determined.

Friends and colleagues yesterday remembered Dr. Rickman's depth as a scientist, physician, teacher and punster.

"As far as I'm concerned, he was the most important and friendly link between UCSD and (practitioners in) the community, always available to all of us to discuss things," said Dr. Gonzalo Ballon-Landa, infectious disease specialist.

Dr. Rickman was the incoming president of the Infectious Disease Association of California.

Physicians within UCSD and in private practice said he was especially effective during the tense times after Sept. 11, 2001, as San Diego County officials grappled with how to respond to a possible attack of anthrax, sarin gas, smallpox or other bioterrorism threat.

With other infectious disease experts, Dr. Rickman toured the county, talking to medical and citizen groups about how to distinguish symptoms of biological agents from ordinary illnesses such as the flu.

He was an author and the editor of a report on bioterrorism by the Group to Eradicate Resistant Micro-organisms (GERM) that was sponsored by the San Diego County Medical Society and distributed to all local health care providers.

Dr. Rickman, who had done much research with pox viruses, helped counsel health workers reluctant to be vaccinated for smallpox, several colleagues recalled.

Dr. Joshua Fierer, UCSD's chief of infectious disease, said Dr. Rickman "loved to study the symptoms of people coming back from exotic places, figuring out where they had been and what they might have been exposed to."

He credited Dr. Rickman with writing one of the first papers linking lung disease to leptospirosis, a bacteria found in water exposed to animal urine.

As a teacher, he was always winning accolades from medical students. Kaushansky said Dr. Rickman won so many prizes, he considered establishing a standing "excellence in perpetuity" award so other UCSD teaching physicians could have a chance.

County epidemiologist Dr. Michele Ginsberg, who worked closely with Dr. Rickman on a variety of cases, recalled how he handled tough situations.

After learning that an employee of a large company had died of meningococcal meningitis, caused by a sometimes lethal bacterium, "he paged me at 6 a.m. while he was driving to see the patient . . . to get public health involved in evaluating who might have been exposed" so they could be given preventive drugs, she said.

"And when he saw that many didn't have health insurance, he helped write the prescriptions to protect others who might have become ill."

Dr. Sara Browne, who is training at UCSD in infectious disease, said Dr. Rickman "went out of his way to make sure patients were covered, sometimes digging into his own pocket" to pay for drugs they couldn't afford.

As an instructor, Browne said, "he was such a great and generous teacher who was always open and never put anyone down for asking a question."

Colleagues said Dr. Rickman was often the first to volunteer during the > UCSD Medical Center's busiest times. He also was associate director of UCSD's microbiology lab, where he did research to better understand what antibiotics might be most effective in treating patients.

Dr. Rickman also had a penchant for bad puns, photography and funny neckties.

"He could make puns about anything, and they were just atrocious," said Dr. Sharon Reed, UCSD professor of pathology and medicine. "And he had an impish sense of humor, wearing ties covered with (microscope images of) bacteria."

Dr. Rickman, who was born in Cleveland, earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and received his medical degree at the University of Michigan. After a fellowship in infectious diseases at the Naval Hospital San Diego during 1983-85 and several posts with the Navy, he joined the UCSD faculty in 1990.

Dr. Rickman is survived by his wife, Susan Kanfer of Carmel Valley; his father, Leonard Rickman of Rancho Bernardo; sister, Janine Rickman of > Phoenix; and a niece and nephew. Memorial services are pending.

> Cheryl Clark (619) 542-4573; cheryl.clark@uniontrib.com >> Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

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