Association of University Cardiologists
Home
Constitution and
Bylaws
Upcoming
Meetings
Officers
Membership
Roster
Deceased
Members
Membership Nomination
Abstract Forms
How to Contact Us
J. Ward Kennedy, M.D.
1933 - 2008
Dr. J. Ward Kennedy, a cardiologist who made novel studies of the heart’s pumping power and helped evaluate streptokinase, a clot-busting drug widely used to prevent heart attacks, died on June 8 at his home in Seattle. He was 74.
President of the American College of Cardiology from 1995-96 and director of the University of Washington's Division of Cardiology, Dr. Kennedy boasted a curriculum vitae that could be a chapter in a heart-surgeon hall of fame.
He was among the pioneers in the early days of heart catheterizations and ascertaining how heart functions are measured. He studied the effects of cardiac surgery, after the replacement of aortic valves. A study he conducted with a colleague concluded that sex was safe for cardiac patients.
He was a lead investigator for a landmark national study on coronary-artery surgery and was part of a study for "clot-busting" drugs.
Friends also say he was well-rounded, and "lived life to the fullest," said Dr. James Ritchie, who worked with him at the university.
"He was thoughtful and generous with his time. He was a serious student of American history and I think he read every book about Franklin Roosevelt," Ritchie said.
He played in bands ever since high school, including playing trombone in the physician jazz group Ain't No Heaven Seven.
His colleges called him "the father of cardiology in Malaysia" after he spent nearly a year there as a visiting professor of cardiology at the University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, in 1972, helping to establish the first cardiac unit and performing the first heart catheterization in that country.
In the mid-1970s he was part of a U.S. Department of State tour to the Soviet Union to help develop cardiac-treatment programs there. He also taught in the Czech Republic in 1996.
Dr. Kennedy grew up in Amherst, Mass., the son of a philosophy professor. He graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine in 1955 and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, N. Y., in 1959.
He came to the UW for an internship that year and with the exception of two years in the Peace Corps in India, spent his entire professional career there until his retirement in 1997.
After that he joined the VA Puget Sound Healthcare until he was diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago.
Sixteen years ago he married his second wife, Kathryn Davis Kennedy, a biostatistician whom he met while they were working on a paper.
"He had a joy de vivre," she said. "He was very much loved. Condolences are coming in from all over the world," she said.