Amy Reed, anesthesiologist and patient safety advocate at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, died of uterine cancer on May 24 at age 44. Dr. Reed and her husband, Hooman Noorchashm, campaigned to outlaw the use of the electric morcellator as a gynecological surgical device after the use of this device in a hysterectomy caused Dr. Reed’s cancer to spread.

Dr. Reed graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Penn State University in 1995. She earned an MD and a PhD in immunology from Penn’s School of Medicine and worked at Penn as a TA in CGS (now LPS). She was a postdoctoral researcher in the department of surgical research at the Perelman School of Medicine in 2001 and a postdoctoral fellow in the department of anesthesia in 2005. She completed her medical residency at Penn in 2011. Then, she spent the next two years working at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where she worked in surgery and intensive care unit. She returned to Penn in 2014 where she became a clinical associate in anesthesia.

She is survived by her husband; two daughters, Nadia and Ava; four sons, Joseph, Joshua, Luke and Ryan; her mother, JoAnn Tunis Trainer; her father, William Reed; three brothers, Matthew Reed, Justin Reed and Daniel Trainer, and four sisters, Alison Perate, Andrea Kealy, Amber Trainer and Sarah Trainer.