Jovitas Ginas Skucas

Jovitas Ginas Skučas died on August 31, 2024 at the age of 87. Born September 21, 1936 in Klaipėda, Lithuania, his family fled the Soviet Army in 1944 and lived as displaced persons in Lonsee, Neuffen, and Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany until 1949 when an American relative agreed to sponsor their six-person family in Fanwood, NJ. Eventually his parents found work at a paper factory and at a cleaners and saved up to purchase a duplex in Plainfield, NJ where they rented out one side of the house to make ends meet while the children attended school.

Ginas graduated in 1958 from New Jersey Institute of Technology with a degree in electrical engineering. He spent three years in the US Air Force and during which he spent one year stationed in Iceland. Upon returning, he attended night school to get his master’s in engineering, but his love of medicine saw him graduate from Hahnemann University in 1968 with an MD. After residency and fellowship, he was a radiologist subspecializing in gastrointestinal radiology.

He married Gailutė Vaičiūnas in 1965, and his medical career took them to New York City and Indianapolis before settling in Hilton, NY, with their three young children. From 1973 to 2015, he taught at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and consulted in radiology at local hospitals. He served as Director of the Radiology Residency Program at the University of Rochester from 1989 to 1999. Ginas lectured at universities in the US, Canada, Mexico, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Japan, South Korea, and South Africa. He is the author of over 60 scientific journal articles and wrote or contributed to 22 books in his field, earning two awards for his work and the respect of his colleagues at home and abroad, particularly Lithuania.

In 1993, Ginas began giving lectures at the Kaunas Medical Academy in Lithuania, and was an honorary member of the Lithuanian Society of Radiologists. He and Gailutė bought and restored a pre-war apartment in the leafy, quiet Kaunas neighborhood of Žaliakalnis, and retreated there six months out of the year so he could take the trolleybus to the academy lecture hall. He was also deeply interested in genealogy, and mapped his parents’ family trees back four generations and then some. His magnum opus was his 1995 book, “Prisimenimai iš Praeities” (“Memories from the Past”) which used primary source material (interviews and diaries) from his parents and several relatives to document their exile from Lithuania and life in the states. In his retired years, Ginas perpetually worked on a Lithuanian dictionary of medicine, reportedly making it up to the letter “T”.

Ginas is survived by his three adult children Tomas, Andrius, and Loreta and their families, and his brother Donatas, sisters Milda and Lina, and their families.

A private family Funeral Service will take place on Monday, September 23rd at Vay-Schleich & Meeson, 1075 Long Pond Road. Interment to follow in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, we welcome donations to the Rochester & Finger Lakes Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association in his memory.