Dushan J. Babich, an internist and a longtime resident of Southampton and Manhattan, died on October 20 at his home in Manhattan of heart failure. He was 93.
His road to Southampton had been a long one. Dr. Babich was born in Kocicevo Selo, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, now Bosnia, to Serbian Christian Orthodox parents, Jefto and Stajka Babich. He and his sister, Bosa, and parents escaped from the Nazis and their Croatian collaborators in 1941 to Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), where they were refugees during World War II. After the war, Dr. Babich completed medical school, graduating first in his class, at the University of Belgrade, where he later became an assistant professor of medicine and a medical researcher. In 1963, an opportunity to realize his greatest dream and leave Tito’s communist Yugoslavia presented itself and Dr. Babich moved his family to Harar, Ethiopia, where he worked as a physician and researcher.
In 1967, he fulfilled his second wish, to move to the United States to give his children a better life and education. The family emigrated to New York, and upon completion of his residency training, Dr. Babich practiced medicine in Brooklyn until his retirement to Manhattan and Southampton in 1986.
During his life, Dr. Babich also wrote more than 40 medical publications in Yugoslavia and internationally and was the author of several books, including his autobiography, and numerous published articles. In addition to science and writing, his interests and accomplishments included opera singing, numismatics, photography and foreign languages, among others. He was fluent in five languages, with working knowledge of others. He fulfilled his dream to educate his children in the United States when his daughter graduated from Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences and Fordham Law School and his son, Dr. Alexander Babich, obtained M.D. Ph.D. degrees from Weil Cornell Medical School and The Rockefeller University. His last wish was to live long enough to see all his three grandsons go to college. His grandson Stefan Babich graduated from Oberlin College, Luke Babich is currently a senior at Stanford University, and Nikola Protic is a freshman at Cornell University.
Dr. Babich is survived by his daughter, Dushica Protic, Esq., an attorney in New York and husband Dr. John Protic, vice chairman of pathology at Brookdale Hospital in New York; his son, Dr. Alexander Babich, a physician in St. Louis and wife Sarah Hanly, Ph.D.; and grandsons Nikola Protic, Stefan Babich and Luke Babich. He is also survived by his brother-in-law, Vojin Ognjanovic, a mechanical engineer, his nieces Ivana Ognjanovic, Esq., and Gordana Ognjanovic, Esq., both attorneys in Los Angeles, and their families. His wife of 65 years, Zorica Babich, died in 2012.
A funeral service was held on October 25 at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons, with Father Constantine Lazarakis officiating. Burial was at Southampton Cemetery.
on Oct 27, 2015