[ A Pioneer of Surgery | The Hardy Family | The Hardy Obituary ]

Dr. Hardy grew up in Newala, Alabama, 35 miles south of Birmingham where his father owned a lime plant.

He graduated from high school in Montevallo, and entered the University of Alabama the next fall to begin a premed curriculum.

Alabama, like Mississippi, had a two-year medical program, but Dr. Hardy was accepted at the four-year medical school at the University of Pennsylvania where he received the MD in 1942. During his senior year, he was president of Alpha Omega Alpha and did research in wound healing resulting in his first scientific publication. Fifty years later, he was invited to represent his class in addressing Penn's 1992 medical school graduates at the school's annual commencement.

Internship and a year's residency in internal medicine followed at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where, as Dr. Hardy reported in his memoirs, research "became a vital part of my professional life." He published several papers dealing with experiments in circulatory physiology including shock and body fluids.

With the nation at war, he reported for active duty in the US Army in early 1944. Stationed first at Stark General Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, he there met his future wife Louise Scott Sams of Decatur, Georgia.

It was during his service in the army, working in the 81st field hospital in Germany, that he decided to switch from medicine to surgery.

His early work in wound healing certainly played a part in the decision, and working with wounded patients on a daily basis convinced him where his true interests were.

After the war, he successfully applied for a surgery residency at Penn where he studied under Dr. Isidor S. Ravdin, department chairman.

Marriage came in 1949, and he received a Damon Runyon Clinical Research Fellowship to further study the use of heavy water as a way of measuring body fluids. He referred to this work "enormously gratifying" although requiring "prodigious effort and concentration." But it made him recognize that he would never be contented professionally unless his career had a significant research component.

In 1950, the first of four Hardy daughters was born--Louise Scott--and Dr. Hardy began his first book, Surgery and the Endocrine System. When published two years later, it was the first book ever written on the subject.

In 1951, Dr. Hardy was awarded the Master of Medical Science in physiological chemistry by the University of Pennsylvania for his heavy water research. It was also the year the Hardys moved to Memphis and second daughter Julia Ann was born.

Although many factors influenced his decision to leave Philadelphia where he had lived for 13 years, Dr. Hardy recalls in his memoirs that it was the mockingbird which finally brought him back South. While visiting the University Tennessee at Memphis he heard the bird's call, the first time in more than a decade. It somehow sealed the decision to move.

He was assistant (later associate) professor of surgery at Memphis and director of surgical research. It was during his tenure at Memphis that he came to the attention of Dr. David Pankratz, University of Mississippi medical school dean, who was busy scouring the country for potential department chairs for the new four-year medical school which would open in Jackson in 1955.

Dr. Pankratz offered Dr. Hardy the chair of surgery in 1953, the same year third daughter Bettie Winn was born.

In 1955, fourth daughter Katherine Poynor was born, and the Hardys and the medical school moved to Jackson.

In summarizing his career in his memoirs, Dr. Hardy says, "If I have been a prisoner of my career, certainly I have been a willing one. I would do the same thing again. We were brought up on the hard work ethic, and having multiple interesting projects has served only to render life more richly rewarding."

[ A Pioneer of Surgery | The Hardy Family ]

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