Association of University Cardiologists
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Harry F. Zinsser, M.D.
1918 - 2005
Dr. Harry F. Zinsser Jr. GM’49, Bryn Mawr, PA., emeritus professor of medicine at the School of Medicine and chief of cardiology and chair of medicine at Graduate Hospital; August. 30, 2005.
Before coming to Penn he taught at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, 1946-47. He was a faculty member at the University’s School of Medicine from 1947 until his retirement in 1982. He was also professor of cardiology and served as chief of cardiology at Presbyterian Hospital.
Dr. Zinsser performed the first heart catheterization at Penn. He designed and donated the first catheterization laboratories at both Graduate Hospital and Presbyterian Hospital. He was an officer and board member of numerous medical and professional organizations. Philadelphia magazine named him annually as the cardiologist that doctors would consult first.
During World War II he served in the Pacific as a member of the U.S. Army’s 27th General Hospital. Promoted to Major, he was part of the Surgeon General’s office, where he visited and inspected medical bases during the final months of the war in preparation for the invasion of Japan. After the surrender he was assigned to General Douglas MacArthur’s Surgeon General’s staff in Tokyo.
Back in the States, he became chief of medicine at the Army’s 361st General Hospital and later deputy commander and then acting commander of the 31st Hospital Center in Philadelphia. He was a member of the special medical group at the Pensacola Naval Base and Cape Canaveral that examined the cardiovascular effects of space flight.