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Hadley L. Conn, Jr., M.D.
1921 - 2000
Hadley Conn, Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Medicine of The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the Robert Wood Johynson Medical School, a member of this Association since 1964, died December 3, 2000, at his home in Princeton, NJ, after a protracted illness with pancreatic carcinoma . He was born in Danville, IN, 79 years earlier, where he was the drum major of the high school band and an excellent tennis player. He received both a bachelors degree and a medical doctorate from Indiana University, the later in 1944. As an undergraduate he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and as a medical student, Alpha Omega Alpha.
His internship was at Indiana University and an Assistant Residency in pathology at Western Reserve, Cleveland City Hospital followed. From 1946 to 1948 he served in the Armed Forces as an Assistant Resident Pathologist, Gorgas General Hospital, Canal Zone, during which time he and Betty Jean Aubertin were married. Upon his military discharge he continued his medical training in Philadelphia, first as a fellow in pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, then a resident in medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and finally as a research fellow of the American Heart Association.
Upon completion of his formal medical training he moved to Upton, New York, where, for a year, he was an associate scientist in the division of physiology, Brookhaven National Laboratories.
Once again in Philadelphia he spent the next five years as an established investigator of the American Heart Association. At the Pennsylvania Medical School he rapidly rose through the academic ranks, becoming Professor of Medicine and Director of the Department of Medicine at the Presbyterian-University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. Except for a year during which he was a visiting Professor of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, he remained at the Presbyterian Hospital until 1972 when he assumed the Chairmanship of the Department of Medicine at the Rutgers Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey which became the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
During the next fourteen years Hadley played a leadership role in the growth and development of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. While he spent much time in the recruitment of a young, vigorous group of physicians to the Medical Department, he devoted most of his time to his first love, the teaching and mentoring of medical students, house staff and faculty.
Outside of the Medical School most of Hadley' activities were primarily of a cardiologic or educational nature. As a cardiologist, he was a trustee of the American College of Cardiology, a Director of the Pennsylvania State Heart Association, the President of the Heart Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the President of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Heart Association, Governor for Pennsylvania of the American Heart Assocation and a member of the council on clinical cardiology of New Jersey.
As an educator he was Chairman of the Postgraduate Education Committee of the American College of Cardiology, Secretary, Part 11, of the National Board of Examiners and Chairman of the ECFMG test committee.
Hadley was a member of numerous professional societies among which were the American Physiological Society, The American Heart Association, The American College of Cardiology, The Association of University Cardiologists, The Association of Professors of Medicine, The American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American College of Physicians, of which he was a fellow.
He was on the editorial boards of Metabolism, Cardiovascular Digest and MEDCOM, and the editor of the cardiovascular section, Tice's Textbook of Medicine, with Horwitz of Cardiac and Vascular Diseases and with Briller, The Myocardial Cell.
Most of Hadley's research efforts occurred prior to his becoming Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Rutgers Medical School. His bibliography lists sixty-six articles, most of which deal with the function and metabolism of the cardiovascular system. Initially, he carried out a number of studies on the kidney, followed by an exploration of various aspects of the blood's circulation in man. Most noteworthy were his studies of the metabolism and function of quinidine in humans.