Ophthalmologist couldn't find donor marrow match
\Family and friends from his hometown of Des Plaines rallied around Dr. Kenneth L. Piest last year when he was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. They sponsored drives to find a bone marrow donor.
Dr. Piest never found a match, and succumbed to the disease Oct. 5 in San Antonio, Texas. He was 53.
But at least two people who volunteered to be donors in the hopes of helping Dr. Piest have been matched with other patients in need, including a 15-year-old boy.
"It's his legacy," sister Kerry Piest said. "Our mission is to get everybody on the bone marrow transplant list so nobody has to die anymore."
She plans to keep the foundation in his name going to help others.
Dr. Piest, a 1972 Maine West High School graduate, ran an ophthalmology practice in San Antonio, where he focused on plastic and reconstructive surgery.
He also is remembered in Des Plaines as the older brother of Robert Piest, who at age 15 in 1978 became the last victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. It was the search for Robert Piest, who went to see Gacy about a summer job, that led Des Plaines police to Gacy's home and the discovery of 33 bodies.
A graduate of University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago in 1984, Dr. Piest completed his internship in Chicago and his ophthalmology residency in San Antonio.
He finished three more years of formal fellowship training in ophthalmic pathology and oncology at the University of Utah, ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Scheie Eye Institute and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
He also trained in craniofacial and pediatric ophthalmology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Center for Human Appearance at the University of Pennsylvania.
He returned to San Antonio in 1991, serving on the faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center until starting his private practice in 1995.
Besides his sister, survivors include his mother, Elizabeth Piest.
A service will be held at 7 p.m. today at the Porter Loring North Chapel in San Antonio.
Family members are planning to hold a service in Des Plaines. No date has been set.