Harry W. Fritts Jr.

Harry Washington Fritts Jr. (4 October 1921, Rockwood, Tennessee – 22 April 2011, Northport, New York) was an American physician, professor of medicine, and the founding chair of the Department of Medicine of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine.

Biography Born in a coal mining town in eastern Tennessee, Fritts attended Vanderbilt University and then transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. There he was supervised and mentored by André Cournand and Dickinson W. Richards. When Cournand retired in 1964, Fritts became his successor as the laboratory director specializing in cardio-pulmonary physiology. When Bellevue's Cardio-Pulmonary Laboratory closed in 1968, the Laboratory's personnel moved to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Fritts was appointed the Dickson W. Richards Professor of Medicine (Class of 1974 and Class of 1975). At the Stony Brook University School of Medicine (on Long Island), he was the Edmund D. Pellegrino Professor of Medicine, as well as the chair of the medical department, from 1973 until 1987, when he retired. In 1997 the Johns Hopkins University Press published his book On Leading a Clinical Department: A Guide for Physicians.

He was predeceased by his wife Helen (1923–2010). Upon his death he was survived by three children and five grandchildren.

Selected publications