Gottlieb C. FRIESINGER II

FRIESINGER II, MD, Gottlieb C. (Bud)Professor of Medicine, emeritus, at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, died July 28, 2012. He was 83. Born in Zanesville, OH in 1929, he was the son of Herman Christian and Ruth Friesinger. He graduated from Muskingum College (Ohio) and earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1955, where he also did his postgraduate training, including a year as the Osler Chief Resident. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He served as regimental surgeon for the 5th Marines for two years, then returned to Johns Hopkins until coming to Vanderbilt in 1971 to be the first director of the Division of Cardiology. He stepped aside from that position in 1990 and remained on the faculty in an active role until 2002. At both Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt, he held endowed chairs and was active in cardiovascular research, as well as patient care and teaching. In 2000, former trainees formed the Friesinger Society and established an endowed chair at Vanderbilt in his honor. His early research activities included studies in the development and use of coronary arteriography, the hemodynamics of myocardial infarction, and the development of nuclear medicine techniques to assess ventricular function. Later, he focused his research on cardiovascular manifestations in the elderly. He wrote more than 100 original publications in peer-reviewed journals and more than 25 chapters in textbooks, and edited two books. In 1957, he was the first to successfully use the Kouwenhoven defibrillator. Dr. Friesinger was a consultant to a number of national organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, the Rand Corp., and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where he helped develop programs to foster minority faculty in academic medicine. He was a Master in both the American College of Physicians and the American College of Cardiology, and also a Distinguished Fellow of the ACC. He was on the editorial boards of The Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation. For 21 years, he served on the Board of Trustees at the Johns Hopkins University, with a special commitment to work at the Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. He was also a Presidential Counselor at Hopkins, and a visiting professor and lecturer at many academic medical centers in the United States and Western Europe. Recently, he created and offered several very popular courses at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt. Dr. Friesinger is survived by his wife of 60 years, Janet Anderson Moorehead; children, Gretchen Friesinger Denison, Kristin Friesinger Wright, G. Christian Friesinger III, M.D., and Alison Friesinger; as six grandchildren, Tom Christian Denison, Louisa Campbell Denison, Steven Anderson Wright, Rachel Elizabeth Wright, Thomas Dietrich Hill, and Frederica Van Horne Hill, and two sisters, Henrietta Hurst of Zanesville, OH and June Mock of Newark, OH. A Memorial service will be held at 11 a.m.0 on August 18th, at Benton Chapel. In lieu of flowers, be charitable. NASHVILLE FUNERAL AND CREMATION SERVICE, (615) 256-1605.