FEATURE
Boating with Dr. Arthur Keeney.
Drs. Art and Virginia Keeney were named Joint Citizen Laureates
of Louisville by the Young Women's Club.
care for his grandmother. Art had been accepted to the University
of Pennsylvania where he longed to attend but understood that
he was needed elsewhere. Virginia Keeney soon joined the UofL
School of Medicine as Art had, one of only three women in her
class of 100 students.
“I loved Louisville very soon after arriving, and Art’s grand-
mother was very good to us. Still, I suspect it was hard for my parents
still living in Albany,” Dr. Keeney said, a tinge of regret in her voice.
Art moved through his career with uncommon speed. He fin-
ished his internship and residency in ophthalmology with the
intention of serving his country as a US Army doctor and was
assigned to a Station Hospital in Korea. Virginia was working on a
degree in medicine but put it on hold to travel halfway around the
world with the love of her life.
In Korea, Virginia Keeney worked in the station hospital lab for
two years. When Art’s Army obligations had come to an end, he
asked permission to tour the Orient with his wife and two other
medical officers before heading home. His commanding officer
said they would have to confirm with General Douglas MacArthur.
Dr. Virginia Keeney with her daughter, Dr. Martha Heyburn
Although the Keeneys soon returned to the more familiar United
States, their exciting careers were just beginning. They would spend
the next two decades traveling between Louisville and Philadelphia,
enriching both cities in unique ways.
All three Keeney children were born in the next few years. Art
completed a graduate medical degree from the University of Penn-
sylvania and began private practice in Louisville. Virginia completed
her UofL medical degree and attended countless ophthalmology
meetings and committees in support of her husband.
Dr. Heyburn considered this period of her mother’s life extremely
courageous and said, “A great strength of my mother’s was that
she could complete her medical training over several schools and
almost seven years. She didn’t give up her career despite what I’m
sure were very trying movements, an extended stay in Korea, and
the birth of three children. I thought it was a big enough challenge
to go to medical school straight through.”
“The three of them went in to see General MacArthur. I sat
outside worried sick, but the general politely said, ‘I don’t see why
not.’ We left excited, with two months to visit Asia,” she said. The
year was 1948. The impact on community health made by Dr. Keeney borders
on immeasurable due to her pioneering work with the Sabin Oral
Polio Vaccine. The vaccine was discovered in 1960 by Dr. Albert
Sabin and first distributed in Cincinnati. Each vaccine was given
via a few drops on a sugar cube. Soon, Kentucky followed suit. Dr.
Keeney was selected by the Jefferson County Medical Society to be
co-chair of the vaccine’s distribution with Dr. William Vonderhaar.
“We traveled all over. The trip began in Tokyo, but Siam was my
favorite. The king had died, and he was in a huge urn up on a stage.
His son was made king by being given a gift of jewels exactly the
same weight as his father’s. The son sat in this huge swing during
the ceremony. It was all very fabulous.” “I probably met Dr. Keeney for the first time in the 1960s when
she was organizing the polio vaccine clinics for the city of Louisville,”
said Dr. Barbara Isaacs, an allergist-immunologist who would col-
laborate with Dr. Keeney for years to come on the Jefferson County
Medical Society (now GLMS) Ethics Committee. “My father was
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