In Memoriam: Dr. John Lear Randall

Raised on a farm in Pennsylvania, he initially pursued religious studies before turning to medicine. He served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy and ultimately became board-certified in three specialties: pediatrics, family medicine, and infectious disease. His career was marked by a fearless engagement with the world’s most pressing challenges. He testified before Congress on behalf of Physicians for Social Responsibility during the cleanup of the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and played a key role in ending a polio epidemic in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, working with Amish bishops to conduct mass immunization across 82 parishes. Later, as Dean of Clinical Sciences at St. Matthew’s University in Grand Cayman, he championed students from around the globe who faced systemic barriers to admission at U.S. medical schools.

From 1991 to 2002, John served as the chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University where he met Nova’s founder, Dr. Brian Berman. Brian found in him “a soulmate, mentor, and fellow sailor who encouraged the bold and uncharted work of founding what would become Nova.” John later served on Nova’s board and was the first senior advisor to the Scholars and Fellows program, bringing with him a lifetime of wisdom and an inexhaustible curiosity.

John’s passion for expanding the view of Western medicine was a cornerstone of his connection with Nova. Conversations with him ranged freely into spirituality, energetics, consciousness, and Chinese medicine—a tradition he had studied deeply, along with Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and the I Ching, which he practiced throughout his life. In his final years, he earned a master’s degree in holistic spirituality, a fitting capstone to a lifelong inquiry into the diverse ways humanity connects with the spiritual and the divine.

To know John was to encounter a true Renaissance man. Those who attended Nova gatherings will carry vivid memories of him: a gentle giant who led the group in Tai Chi, his whole-body chuckle, his love of music—he could quote Shakespeare or belt out a Broadway number at the dinner table—and his deep belief in the power of dialectic exchange among people of different backgrounds and disciplines. We wish him safe travels, and will always feel his wind in our sails.