Harry Washington Fritts Jr. (4 October 1921, Rockwood, Tennessee – 22 April 2011,

Northport, New York Northport is a historic maritime village on the northern shore of Long Island in Suffolk County, New York, United States. Initially designated Great Cow Harbour by 17th-century English colonists, the area was officially renamed Northport in 1837 ...

) was an American physician, professor of medicine, and the founding chair of the Department of Medicine of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine. (This article gives 1922 as Fritts's year of birth — the correct year is 1921.)

Biography

Born in a coal mining town in eastern Tennessee, Fritts attended Vanderbilt University and then transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. After leaving the U.S. Navy in 1946, he became a medical student and graduated in 1951 with an M.D. from the

Boston University School of Medicine The Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, formerly the Boston University School of Medicine, is one of the graduate schools of Boston University. Founded in 1848, the medical school was the first institution in the world t ...

. After completing his internship and residency in Boston, he became a research fellow in the Cardio-Pulmonary Laboratory at Manhattan's

Bellevue Hospital Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States b ...

. There he was supervised and mentored by

André Cournand André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation ...

and

Dickinson W. Richards Dickinson Woodruff Richards, Jr. (October 30, 1895 – February 23, 1973) was an American physician and physiologist. He was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956 with André Cournand and Werner Forssmann for the de ...

. When Cournand retired in 1964, Fritts became his successor as the laboratory director specializing in cardio-pulmonary physiology. When Bellevue's Cardio-Pulmonary Laboratory closed in 1968, the Laboratory's personnel moved to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Fritts was appointed the Dickson W. Richards Professor of Medicine at the

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) is the graduate medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Founded i ...

. He retained that professorship until he became in April 1973 the founding chair of the medical department of Stony Brook University School of Medicine, which was founded in 1971. At that time, there were 48 students enrolled in two classes (Class of 1974 and Class of 1975). At the Stony Brook University School of Medicine (on Long Island), he was the

Edmund D. Pellegrino Edmund Daniel Pellegrino (June 22, 1920 - June 13, 2013) was an American bioethicist and academic who served as the 11th president of The Catholic University of America (CUA) from 1978 to 1982. For 35 years, Pellegrino was a distinguished profe ...

Professor of Medicine, as well as the chair of the medical department, from 1973 until 1987, when he retired. From 1958 to 1973 Fritts was the author or co-author of approximately 30 scientific papers. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1959–1960. In 1997 the Johns Hopkins University Press published his book ''On Leading a Clinical Department: A Guide for Physicians''. He was predeceased by his wife Helen (1923–2010). Upon his death he was survived by three children and five grandchildren.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fritts Jr., Harry W. 1921 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American physicians 21st-century American physicians American physiologists American pulmonologists United States Navy personnel of World War II MIT School of Engineering alumni Boston University School of Medicine alumni Columbia University faculty Stony Brook University faculty People from Roane County, Tennessee Vanderbilt University alumni