IN REMEMBRANCE
In Remembrance
ROBERT SHERLEY
HOWELL, MD
February 1924 –
March 2018
I
had the privilege of working with Bob Howell in the Pathology
Department at Jewish Hospital from 1973 to 1992, the best years
of my professional career. He was an excellent pathologist and a
skillful laboratory director respected by physicians, laboratory
technicians and his pathology colleagues alike. I remember
those days with pleasure and gratitude.
Bob was modest and reserved. Over the years, I came to appre-
ciate his talents as a superb pathologist and as the director of the
Jewish Hospital pathology laboratory.
Under his leadership, a tissue typing laboratory was established,
enabling a kidney transplant to be performed, the first in Kentucky.
This ultimately led to a strong collaboration between the University
of Louisville and Jewish Hospital, and the transplant program grew to
include hearts, lungs, pancreases, kidneys and eventually the world’s
first long-term successful hand transplant. The collaboration with
the UofL that grew out of these beginnings continues today: the
500 th heart transplant was recently performed at Jewish Hospital.
Bob could dance a pretty fast jitterbug with his wife, Anna.
He modestly never told his partners that he sang in the choir at
his church. We knew that he was a respected tennis player. He
only reluctantly admitted that he started college at Vanderbilt on
a football scholarship, (I later learned that he was the quarterback
and star of the Frankfort High School football team). World War
II intervened and Bob dropped out of college to serve as an officer
in the US Navy in the Pacific.
Bob loved his wife and children and was proud of their accom-
plishments. Anna was a great tennis player and, according to some,
a feared Bridge player. We knew he loved his hometown, Frankfort,
but he rendered great service to Louisville and the medical com-
munity here.
We, his former colleagues, many laboratory technologists and
others who worked in Jewish Hospital, as well as his many friends
in Louisville, will miss him always.
- Lynn Ogden, MD
Dr. Howell served in wider fields of the medical community as
president of the Jefferson County Medical Society (now the Greater
Louisville Medical Society), and later, as president of the Kentucky
Medical Association. He was one of the leaders in preserving the Old
Medical School Building and served as president of the Louisville
Area Chamber of Commerce.
Dr. Howell was a GLMS member for 65 years.
MAY 2018
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