Dr. Rick Vanderslice, Hilton Head urologist with a passion for missions, dies at 60
Dr. Richard Vanderslice, a longtime Hilton Head Island and Bluffton urologist with a missionary’s heart, died of cancer at home Friday night.
He turned 60 on Monday.
Vanderslice started The Urology Group on Hilton Head in the mid-1990s and joined New River Urology in late 2016. He was a founding partner of the Outpatient Surgery Center on Hilton Head.
He served on the board of Hilton Head Hospital and received The Circle of Care Award from Volunteers in Medicine.
Vanderslice was known for giving patients his cell phone number, and for a boyish look and energy behind big glasses and long hair. He was a dapper dresser, with bow ties, buck shoes and stylish European glasses. And he was known for a quick wit, and what his friends call “Rick quips.”
But his heart was in mission trips through his church, St. Luke’s on Hilton Head.
Vanderslice went on his first of more than a dozen medical mission trips to Tanzania in 2006.
The Rev. Greg Kronz of St. Luke’s said Vanderslice set up a clinic in a remote area that could be reached only by boat, and only at high tide.
“There were some great stories behind that,” Kronz said.
But the mission trips — and many lives — changed when Vanderslice was joined on a trip for the first time by his wife, Joni, the founder, owner and president of J. Banks Design Group on Hilton Head.
That’s when the Valentine Project took life, resulting in an orphanage in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
It now houses, feeds and educates 27 children ages 3 to 13 — one rescued as an infant from a trash bin.
It was created with help from the Anglican diocese in Tanzania, St. Luke’s Church, Rick and Joni Vanderslice, and many others
Rick Vanderslice told Nancy Fish for Pink Magazine that the first mission trip transformed his life.
“The second trip allowed me to spend more time and discuss parish issues with Archbishop Valentine Mokiwa,” Vanderslice told the magazine.
“The list of things that could make life better for our friends there is rather long. However, the need to help orphans seemed to stand out. I told him that I would do what I could.”
Response back home from his wife, clergy and friends was enthusiastic.
Kronz said they would have been returning from a trip to Tanzania on the day Vanderslice died, if not for the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and the doctor’s failing health.
“With God’s help,” Vanderslice told Pink Magazine, “we will one day have several hundred kids receiving the food, clothing, shelter and education that every kid deserves. I can’t wait to visit them. I hope I’ll see you there someday.”
Vanderslice grew up in suburban Boston and graduated from Boston College. He completed medical school and conducted his residency at Georgetown University Medical School.
Hilton Head first caught his eye when he attended the wedding of a high school friend here.
He and Joni met on a blind date in 1996 and were married a year later.
They have two daughters, Sarah, 21; and Grace, 19.
Vanderslice was very health-conscious in his diet and workouts, with fishing, paddleboarding, hiking, and biking favorite activities.
But a tumor in a hard-to-reach place on his liver was discovered by happenstance during a lung scan. He was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in September 2018, his wife said.
He underwent a 13-hour autotransplantation operation at the University of Chicago Medicine in November 2018 and reported good results.
“It gave him a longer life,” Joni Vanderslice said.
The surgery involved removing the liver from the body, cutting the cancer out and then transplanting it back into the body, according to a story in a University of Chicago Medicine magazine.
The cancer returned about a year ago.
The Rev. Kronz said, “Rick had a heart for the people over in Tanzania, and the church over there, and for children.
“He loved the Lord and tried to share the gospel with people, but moreover tried to live the gospel.”
Joni Vanderslice said a masked, socially-distanced memorial service will be held late in the week at St. Luke’s.
This story was originally published July 4, 2020 at 6:04 PM.
