Peter F. Hjort

Peter Fredrik Holst Hjort (23 March 1924 – 1 January 2011) was a Norwegian professor of medicine and politician for the Labour Party. He is best known for his work to establish the University of Tromsø, and for his work with public health.

Personal life He was born in Kristiania as a son of barrister and right-wing political figure Johan Bernhard Hjort (1895–1969) and Anna Cathrine Holst (1895–1992). His grandfathers were fisheries director Johan Hjort and professor of medicine Peter Fredrik Holst. He was a brother of Johan Hjort and Wanda Hjort Heger. In 1948 he married Tone Seip (1926–2001), a daughter of academic Didrik Arup Seip. He spent the years 1998 to 2001 nursing his wife, who had sustained critical brain damage during an operation.

Career Hjort finished his secondary education in 1942.

He studied medicine and graduated from the University of Oslo with the cand.med. degree in 1950. In the following decade he worked with medicine in Gloppen, Lillehammer, and at Rikshospitalet in Oslo. He also had research fellowships at the University of Oslo as well as a Fulbright Scholarship. He took the dr.med. degree in 1957 and became a specialist in internal medicine in 1959. and the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (1998), and was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (from 1969) and the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (since 1979). He died on New Year's Day 2011 in Bærum.