Lisa Robin Kantrowitz of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Chilmark died on June 6 after a 23-year battle with cancer. She was 68.

Lisa’s ambition and capability carried her from The Packer Collegiate Institute to the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Stanford and the University of Michigan, where she earned her M.D. Nowhere did she suffer fools lightly. Her boundless curiosity extended through her careers, first as a surgeon, then as an interventional radiologist and finally as an investor.

In her first life as a physician, she trained at Columbia Presbyterian and Massachusetts General Hospital before serving as an attending physician at Yale New Haven Hospital and the University of California, Irvine. Lisa was a third-generation physician whose father, Adrian Kantrowitz, was a pioneering cardiac electrophysiologist and surgeon. He performed the first human heart transplant in the United States. Her daughter Olivia continues that tradition as a resident in internal medicine.

Lisa was enamored with the world and all the joys she uncovered within it: understanding craftsmanship in botany, jewelry enamel and architecture, the Latin names of animals and the nuances of equity derivatives. Cultivating her passions and propagating them in others brought her profound satisfaction. She gave impromptu seminars on the provenance of a ring, mapped family genealogy on napkins and expounded on the composition of a planned forest. She spoke with utmost sincerity on the geological trends of Martha’s Vineyard and the immigrant histories of New York. There was no subject that could elude her consuming interest in life’s inner workings nor a room whose entire space she couldn’t fill with her unique perspective and choice words.

Her generosity manifested constantly: advising friends on the best path forward when confronting illness, shouldering her friends’ burdens by listening and nurturing intellect in every child she met. Her fondest aphorism was “there is no can’t.” There was always a way for ducklings with Lisa, who harbored that same wonder throughout her life.

Lisa’s values live on in her children: Sam and Ana, Alexander and Alexa, Peter and Allyson, and Olivia; her loving husband Elliott; and her family.

She was interred at Abel’s Hill Cemetery, Chilmark.