Association of University Cardiologists
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Ernest Craige, M.D.
1918 - 2008
Ernest Craige, M.D., 89, Professor Emeritus of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died on January 24, 2008, at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Dr. Craige served as Chief of the Division of Cardiology at the UNC School of Medicine for 26 years and was an internationally renowned expert in echocardiography.
Dr. Craige was born June 3, 1918, in El Paso, Texas. He received his BA from UNC in 1939. Dr. Craige was a member of the Golden Fleece, Order of Gimghoul, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Nu Fraternity, of which he was President. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1939, but did not take up residence in England because of the outbreak of World Ware II. Instead, he attended Harvard Medical School and graduated with an M.D. degree in the spring of 1943. After an internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Army training at Camp Barkley in texas, Dr. Craige participated in the northern European campaign with the Fifth Auxiliary Surgical Group in 1944 and 1945. He published a cartoon history of his wartime experiences, When Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.
When the war was over in Europe, Dr. Craige was sent to Fitzsimons Hospital in Denver to care for US Army personnel who had been held in Japanese prison camps. At Fitzsimons he met Hazel Fischer, an Army officer nurse also stationed there. They were married in Minneapolis in 1946 and moved to Boston where Dr. Craige completed further medical training in cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital with Dr. Paul Dudley White.
The Craige family came to Chapel Hill in 1952 when the UNC Medical School was expanding from a two-year to a four-year curriculum and North Carolina Memorial Hospital was under construction. Dr. Craige became the first Chief of the Division of Cardiology at UNC in 1952 and served in that capacity until 1978. He retired in 1985.
Dr. Craige was the author of over 100 scientific papers and chapters in medical textbooks and carried out extensive cardiac research, principally concerning the physiologic origin of heart sounds and murmurs. In his work, he collaborated with a series of talented academic investigators from the US, Japan, England, and Switzerland. He received the Distinguished Teacher Award from the American College of Cardiology in 1982 and a similar honor from the UNC School of Medicine. Known for his wry sense of humor, Dr. Craige was a gifted teacher who illustrated his lectures with drawings as he spoke.
Dr. Craige was a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and a member of the Association of University Cardiologists, Alpha Omega Alpha, the American Clinical and Climatological Association, and the American Heart Association. He served on the UNC Medical Co-Founders Board and on the Board of the UNC Press.