Dr. Paul Wetzig was a very serious and dedicated ophthalmologist, but he also was a man who knew how to have fun.
Wetzig, who died at his Colorado Springs home Jan. 9 at age 83, never lost his passion for learning – or for playing practical jokes.
The Pueblo native was a pioneer in the treatment of diabetes-related eye problems after beginning his practice in 1953.
He studied with a German doctor who had developed the Xenon Arch Photocoagulator, and Wetzig realized the machine could be used to help diabetics who suffered from holes in the retina, which caused bleeding. It was the precursor of today’s laser treatments, said Wetzig’s son, Carl Wetzig, also an ophthalmologist.
Paul Wetzig was given several awards for his work with diabetics.
Wetzig’s love of his profession was apparent to everyone, his kids said, and he only reluctantly retired at age 82. But he also loved music, squash, skiing, tennis and practical jokes.
He and his son-in-law, Skip Brand, were squash competitors and had a “trophy belt” they exchanged.
Once Wetzig convinced Brand to play against a female player in Denver. Brand thought she would be a pushover. But his father-in-law had matched him with a professional, “and she wiped him off the court,” said daughter Doreen Brand, Skip Brand’s wife.
Years ago, Wetzig took his grandson, Christopher Brand, who was 8 at the time, to buy a pet. The boy picked out a cockatiel, took it home and found out someone in the house was allergic to it. So Wetzig kept it at his home, “and the bird became Dad’s fifth child,” said Doreen Brand. Wetzig named the bird Rimsky because he liked the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
The bird is still in the Wetzig home, 13 years later.
“Dad sampled and tried everything,” said Doreen Brand, who lives in Elmira, N.Y.
He liked art, travel, music, opera and hiking in the mountains and was learning constantly, she said.
Paul Wetzig was born in Pueblo and graduated from Pueblo Central High, the University of Denver and the University of Colorado Medical School. He interned at the Marine Hospital in Staten Island, N.Y., where he met his future wife, Doreen Brugger. They married Nov. 2, 1946. He did his residency at Cornell University-New York Hospital.
In addition to his wife, son and daughter, he is survived by another daughter, Laura Wetzig Hitch of Colorado Springs; nine grandchildren; and a sister, Betty Stratford of Seattle.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
