Eric Sacknoff, MD, is highly distinguished in the world of medicine, particularly urology. He is a proud graduate of Deering High School, too. According to one friend and former classmate, he still recites the school song and plants purple and white lilacs with Deering in mind.

“I taught my children to sing the Deering High fight song,” he said. “They’ll still sing it in the car if I make them!”

The faculty and staff at Deering have chosen to present Dr. Sacknoff with the 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award, for which he was nominated with the strong support of family, friends, classmates, and colleagues.

Eric Sacknoff, MD, Deering High School Class of 1963, and winner of the 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award

Dr. Sacknoff graduated from Deering in 1963. He said his high school education was the foundation for the career that followed.

“I was a biologist from day one,” he said. “I collected frogs and tadpoles. I fished for the first time when I was five. I had a garden from seven. Then I got to Deering and I had a great biology teacher named Mr. McCann.”

McCann was not the only teacher who made an impression. Dr. Sacknoff recalled his chemistry teacher, Carroll Bean, math teacher, Katharine O'Brien, and his Latin teacher, Sarah Cowan, too. He said studying Latin had given him a head start in both learning medical terms and when traveling abroad for work.

“It made it easier for me to travel and learn a little bit of languages because I took Latin,” he said. “We’d have a Roman banquet every year. We’d dress up in robes. It was a lot of fun.”

Outside of class, Dr. Sacknoff was a star swimmer. He broke the state record in high school swimming in the 100 yard butterfly. After graduation, he attended Tufts University and continued to swim there. He was named Most Valuable Player for three years. In 1967, his senior year, he was captain of the varsity team.

He graduated from Tufts with a Bachelor of Science in biology and completed a fellowship in neuropathology at the Boston VA Hospital in 1968. In 1971, he earned a Doctor of Medicine from the Tufts University School of Medicine.

After medical school, he completed his internship and residency at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. He focused on surgery there, but moved to urology soon after. He did a residency in urology at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1976 and was named chief resident of urology a year later.

He practiced in the greater Boston area for most of his career. He had a busy practice and traveled around the world to give lectures on urology. This included a 1983 trip to China to discuss new applications of cold knife urethrotomy and of laser technology in treating bladder tumors and stones. In 1995, he received the Leon Goldman National Medical Excellence Award from the Laser Centers of America/International Biomedical Optics Society.

In 2006, he accepted a job offer to practice urology in Marion, Virginia, a small rural community in the mountains of the southwest part of the state. One of the people he met there, Gary Peacock, thought that a “big city Doc” wouldn’t work in a small, rural town, but was soon proven wrong. He said Dr. Sacknoff went on to become “an inspirational, involved and supportive part of our community.”

“When you come from New England, you have to get involved in the community,” Dr. Sacknoff said.

An avid fly fisherman, he started the Mountain Empire fly fishing chapter of Trout Unlimited in Virginia. It was a huge success, becoming the largest chapter in the state. The chapter not only converted men from spin fishing to fly fishing, but inspired many women to take up the sport.

“We taught women how to fish,” Dr. Sacknoff said. “They loved it! They didn’t want to touch worms. And we’d raise trout in the classroom so that kids could learn about clean water and fish. Contributing to the community in some way helped people convince that a Yankee was there to help.”

Dr. Sacknoff retired in 2018, after spending a decade as a clinical professor of urology at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Virginia. He also served as the chief of urology at Smyth County Community Hospital in Marion, Virginia, from 2006 to 2018 and as a clinical assistant professor of surgery at Mount Auburn Hospital and Harvard Medical School from 2005 to 2018.

In 2018, he was named Conservationist of the Year by the American Fisheries Society and the Commonwealth of Virginia. He enjoys his retirement with his wife, Carol, and their family, which includes eight children and 10 grandchildren.