Dr. Emanuel Suter, a founding leader of the University of Florida College of Medicine, has died at age 95.

A pioneer in medical education at the University of Florida, Dr. Emanuel Suter, died at the age of 95 on Jan. 8 in Charlottesville, Va., where he had lived in retirement.

Suter was the first chair of the microbiology department at UF and became the UF College of Medicine's second dean in 1965.

He was best known for developing a medical curriculum that introduced clinical practice with basic science education and became a model for medical schools across the nation, said Dr. Parker Small, professor emeritus at the College of Medicine.

Since then virtually all medical schools have recognized the need to integrate basic science with clinical medicine, Small said.

Small, who is also a microbiologist, worked with Suter and succeeded him as chair of the microbiology department in 1966.

He was the best boss I ever had -- an unbelievable human being, Small said, describing Suter as rigorously honest, selfless.

He never would take credit for anything. He would work hard on getting something done, getting it to work, and then make sure that someone else got the credit. Small said.

'He created a Camelot where people worked together, Small continued. It was an environment where all chairman had as goal the betterment of medicine.

Suter was born in Basel, Switzerland, and came to the U.S. in 1949 to pursue research on tuberculosis at the Rockefeller Institute, according to a UF media release. He then established an experimental education program at Harvard University that caught the attention of the UF faculty that recruited Suter.

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Emanuel Suter, second dean of UF medical school, dies at age 95