Stuart Fourman of Stony Brook has died at 52

Stuart Barry Fourman was a 20-something medical student when he was asked to examine a patient resting his chin before a slit lamp, the light-emitting device that doctors use to take a closer look during eye exams.

He noted 14 lesions on the patient's eye. The attending physician had found only 11.

That's how Fourman, and the clinical director who encouraged him to pursue the field, discovered he had an eye for ophthalmology.

He would go on to become one of the founding members of the Department of Ophthalmology at Stony Brook University Medical Center. He founded and directed the hospital's Glaucoma Center and found time to serve as a school board member for the Three Village Central School District.

Fourman, of Stony Brook, died Friday of a heart attack. He was 52.

"Early on in his career, he found a need and within a need he found a purpose," said his son Mitchell Fourman, a medical student.

Born in Brooklyn, Fourman grew up in Canarsie, where he was captain of the math team at the neighborhood's South Shore High School. He graduated in 1975.

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He attended a six-year combined degree program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Albany Medical College, graduating with honors in 1981. He interned at North Shore University Hospital and completed postgraduate work at the Pittsburgh Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Fourman started working and teaching at Stony Brook University Medical Center in 1989. There he rose to clinical professor and director of the center where he specialized in angle-closure glaucoma, an acute form of the eye condition that causes optical nerve damage. He was an inspiring presence for colleagues and students alike, said Patrick Sibony, chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology.

"He was a great teacher," Sibony said. "He got a lot of people interested in ophthalmology because of his enthusiasm."

He spent many nights discussing school programs and budgets as the numbers-savvy member of the Three Village School Board from 1998 to 2009, his son said. He was school board president from 2006 to 2008.

Fourman volunteered for a community project of his own: He looked through Dumpsters for computer equipment that he would repair and donate.

He was not a man to sit idle.

"A lot of people try to pretend to be the iron man, but he essentially was that," said Mitchell Fourman. "He set himself to put 110 percent in everything he did."

In addition to his son, Fourman is survived by his wife, Marian and his younger son, Daniel, of Stony Brook, and brothers Alan of Plainview and Paul of Staten Island.