Charlotte Barnwell McCutchen, M.D., died Sept. 11, 2012 in San Diego, Calif., age 67, of complications from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. She was a resident of Great Falls for 16 years, from 1984-2000.
Her only immediate survivor is her sister Lilla Richards of McLean, who has arranged a private burial in Fallbrook, Calif., the town of McCutchen’s retirement following a prestigious career in neurology research.
Richards remembers her sister as a woman known for her wit. Once asked about the specifics of her job as a lab assistant to a drug pioneer who experimented on overcoming heart transplant rejection in mice, McCutchen replied “Have you ever given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a mouse?” says her sister Richards.
McCutchen attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C. from 1962-1963. She went on to hold a bright academic career including a residency in neurology at Vanderbilt University and a fellowship at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Wash., among other positions.
Other honors McCutchen earned included fellowships at the American EEG Society and the American Academy of Neurology; certifications for neurophysiology and neurology from organizations including the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology; and receiving the National Institutes of Health Award of Merit “for outstanding contributions in coordinating research efforts as a member of the Congressionally mandated National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research” in 1992.
McCutchen taught at the University of Washington School of Medicine, the University of California San Diego in the School of Medicine, La Jolla, and the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University. She directed programs at the VA Medical Center, Seattle, Wash., the San Diego VA Medical Center, the NIH in Bethesda, Md., and the VA Medical Center.
McCutchen was born in Camp LeJeune, N.C. on Oct. 31, 1944, and raised in Arlington, where she graduated from Washington-Lee High School in 1962.