乌鸦传媒

A retired Seattle-based physician died on Monday during a climbing expedition on Mount Everest in Nepal, according to multiple sources.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told 乌鸦传媒 in an email that Jonathan Sugarman, MD, MPH, died on May 1, but declined to comment on the cause of death, adding that the department is providing the necessary assistance to Sugarman's family.

that Sugarman began feeling "unwell" and died after arriving at Camp 2 on Mount Everest during his guided expedition.

Eric Simonson, CEO and owner of International Mountain Guides (IMG), the organization that arranged Sugarman's expedition, confirmed some of those details in , but declined to mention personal information about Sugarman out of respect to his family.

"It is with deep sorrow that IMG reports the death of one of our Everest 2023 team members at Camp 2," Simonson wrote. "We can confirm that this event was not the result of a climbing accident or route condition that would be of potential impact or safety concern to any other teams on the mountain."

Simonson added that the rest of the climbing team was doing "as well as can be expected given the circumstances" and asked the rest of "the climbing community to allow our team and this climber's family the space and time to grieve and contend with their loss."

According to CNN, Sugarman's death occurred during an especially busy climbing season. Nepal had issued a record number of climbing permits for the mountain -- 463 -- as of April 26. Spring is the most popular time of year to climb the mountain, and expeditions typically aim for the middle of May or later to make the final ascent from the lower base camps to the summit.

Sugarman was reportedly an avid mountaineer, who rediscovered the sport later in life after a long hiatus, according to a profile on the , published last year. In the profile, Sugarman is described as a 68-year-old, retired physician who had climbed to Camp 3 on Mount Everest in 2022. It also noted that Sugarman had developed high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) during a 2016 climb to Camp 1.

Sugarman was a clinical professor of global health and family medicine in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington in Seattle, according to a . He was also involved in the global health outreach nonprofit Global to Local, based in SeaTac, Washington.

A.J. McClure, the executive director of Global to Local, released about Sugarman's death on the organization's Twitter account.

"With heavy hearts, the [Global to Local] family is deeply saddened to share the passing of our former colleague and Executive Director, Dr. Jonathan Sugarman," McClure wrote. "He spent his entire professional life improving the delivery of healthcare, and we will be forever grateful for his contributions to [Global to Local] and the local communities we serve."

McClure added that Sugarman had served as the organization's executive director from 2018 to 2020 and he helped to guide it "through significant changes and growth to better serve our community."

Jeanne Cawse-Lucas, MD, a colleague of Sugarman's from the University of Washington, told 乌鸦传媒 that "[m]any people thought of him as an brilliant human and a visionary who really had a community-minded approach to the quality of care. He was a person who was both able to think about individual, local, [and] community level impacts and think about things on a global scale."

"He made these incredible public health impacts, but also really thought like a family doctor," Cawse-Lucas added.

Sugarman received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University, his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and a master's in public health from the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, according to his faculty profile.

Sugarman also helped to author over 90 papers and book chapters on topics ranging from diabetes mellitus to health problems of American Indians.

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