Pat Mercer was not a particularly famous person by today’s media standards. She was however, a well-known peer to all of us in the field of sleep research and treatment. It is often so unfortunate that it takes these types of dramatic circumstances for a person’s impact on the lives of others to be fully felt and realized.

Sleep medicine is young field and Dr. Pat Mercer was one who recognized its future and devoted herself to sleep research. She was a hard worker and a team player, one of those people who are always there when you need them, with a warm and friendly smile. She was a lucky woman who had a best friend and life companion in her husband Roy, three great children, Brenda, Hillary, and Geoffrey and a host of friends and colleagues.

Dr. Mercer received her formal education in Italy and later received her Doctorate in Psychology in Chicago in 1993. Dr. Mercer devoted her life to the once unknown mysterious disease now called Narcolepsy. She worked as a researcher at the Center for Narcolepsy Research at the University of Illinois in Chicago. After she became Board Certified in sleep medicine, she working at Children’s Memorial Hospital’s sleep center in Chicago. Her eagerness to study, delightful personality and enthusiastic attitude made her an indispensable team member. Everyone loved and respected Dr. Mercer. Unfortunately, good people do not necessarily have good health. The monster of our time- cancer (and the most horrific type, a malignant brain tumor) pulled Dr. Mercer out of our world, leaving us without a friend and her family without a loving wife and mother. She died at the age of 60. Although she is not with us any longer, her warmth, friendship and devotion to the field of sleep research on behalf of patients are still felt and will be for some time. That was what she always wanted.

Sleep & Health Staff