Past President's (A)

Abbott / Andujar / Ashworth

Jack P. Abbott, MD (1970)

Background
Dr. Jack Pulliam Abbott was born on October 10, 1923 in Lubbock, Texas. He had one sister, Darlene. He married Johnnie Abbott of Galveston and they had three children, Pamela, Ellen, and John.

Dr. Abbott died on May 18, 1996 in Galveston, Texas.

Medical Education & Practice
Dr. Abbott received his MD degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in 1946 and was board certified in anatomical and clinical pathology in 1952. He did his internship at Hermann Hospital in Houston. He was going to enter the Army to do his military service after completing his internship but found out that he had contracted tuberculosis. Since this was prior to using antibiotics to treat TB, Dr. Abbott was sent to bed for a year. He was still able to complete his pathology residency at Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston on a part-time basis between 1946 and 1952.

Dr. Abbott practiced at Methodist Hospital where he remained for twenty-three years. He served as director of laboratories and, academically, was associate professor of pathology at Baylor. When Methodist Hospital and Baylor were seeking to re-organize their pathology departments, Dr. Abbott was firmly against integrating the two. Eventually, in 1965, Methodist Hospital split from Baylor because Dr. Bob O’Neal, who was dean at the time, would not fire Dr. Abbott. Dr. Abbott’s group had provided pathology services to Methodist Hospital, but Methodist did not want to continue to increase his group’s payments.

Dr. Abbott was an important leader in the Houston Society of Clinical Pathologists. He was present during its organizing session in 1949 and served as its president in 1958 and 1959. He played an important role in reviving the HSCPs after the society saw low attendance from 1951 to 1953.

Dr. Abbott moved to Galveston and retired shortly before his death in 1996.

Texas Society of Pathologists
Dr. Abbott served as president of the TSP in 1970 during a time when pathology was expanding throughout Texas.

Notable Publication(s)
Abbott, Jack P., “Today’s laboratory consultant” Texas State Journal of Medicine 61.6 (1965): 452-453.

John J. Andujar, MD (1954)

Background
Dr. John J. “Andy” Andujar was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on January 26, 1912. He spent most of his childhood living in Puerto Rico where his parents were missionaries. Dr. Andujar’s father died when he was fourteen, leaving his mother to raise him and his three siblings.

Dr. Andujar married Elizabeth “Betty” Richards in 1934. They had two daughters, Betty Jo and Linda Lee. Betty was Tarrant County’s first Republican Senator and Texas’s first Republican woman Senator. She contributed much to the field of pathology in her own right. Dr. Andujar and Betty were married sixty-three years before her death in 1997.

Dr. Andujar died on August 27, 2003 in Fort Worth and is survived by his wife, Mary Parker Andujar and his children.

Medical Education & Practice
Dr. Andujar graduated with his undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1930 and received his MD degree from Temple University in 1934. He studied pathology at Columbia University’s School of Tropical Medicine under his childhood mentor Dr. Baily Ashford. After his internship, Dr. Andujar studied pathology at Cornell University Medical College and Memorial Hospital in New York, (now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center). Dr. Andujar joined the Bender Hygienic Laboratory in Albany, New York before moving to the University of Arkansas to take a position professor of pathology and bacteriology in the medical school. He is distinguished for developing the cardiolipin PCT serologic test, the forerunner of the single-drop blood test for syphilis. He received the prestigious Bryant Award from the Public Health Association for his work.

Dr. Andujar moved to Fort Worth in 1938 to become medical director and chief pathologist at Harris Hospital. He founded the first school of medical technology that was located at Harris Hospital in connection with Texas Christian University.

He left Harris Hospital in 1949 to establish the Fort Worth Medical Laboratories, which he directed until 1984. He then served as consulting director of the Fort Worth Regional Laboratories of the Texas Department of Health. He also served for forty years as a consulting pathologist for both US Public Health Service Hospital and Carswell Air Force Base Hospital.

Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Andujar established the first plasma and blood bank in Tarrant County, organized the first Human Relations Council, helped found the Carter Blood Center, and founded the Tarrant County Mental Health Association. He also founded the Tarrant County and the North Texas Societies of Pathologists.

Dr. Andujar served as president of the Tarrant County Crime Commission, the Tarrant County Medical Society, and the World Association of Societies of Pathology. He received Gold Headed Cane Awards from both the Tarrant County Medical Society and the World Association of Societies of Pathology. In 1989, he was the first recipient of the American Society of Clinical Pathology’s Distinguished Service Award for his ongoing work with the ASCP throughout his career.

Texas Society of Pathologists
Dr. Andujar served the TSP in numerous capacities. He was instrumental in the expansion of the field of pathology in Texas, including delineating the role of the pathologist in the hospital setting. In 1942, Dr. Andujar helped establish the TSP’s Coroner Investigation Committee to investigate the activity of justices of the peace, coroners, and medical examiners. Dr. Andujar also served as chairman of the TSP’s committee on Medical Technology, which sought to evaluate and standardize the teaching of medical technology at the university level.
He served as president of the TSP in 1954, and in 1965 received the George T. Caldwell, MD Award.
In 1998, the TSP changed the Citation of Merit Award to “The Andujar Citation of Merit Award” in honor of the lasting contributions to pathology, medicine, and society of both Dr. Andujar and Senator Betty.

Notable Publication(s)
Andujar, J. J., & Mazurek, E. E. (1959) The plasmacrit (PCT) test on capillary blood; unheated plasma screen test for syphilis. Am J Clin Path 31, 197-204.
Andujar, J. J., & Mazurek, M. S. (1961) Rapid and small-volume regain tests. Bull World Health Organ. 24, 288-290.

Charles T. Ashworth, MD (1952)

Background
Dr. Charles “Charlie” T. Ashworth was born in Kaufman, Texas in 1915. He and his wife, Dorothy, had four sons, Dr. Robert David Ashworth, J. Michael Ashworth, Dr. Stanley Warren Ashworth, and C. Taylor Ashworth, and eleven grandchildren.

Dr. Ashworth passed away in 1985.

Medical Education & Practice
Dr. Ashworth completed his undergraduate education at North Texas State University. He received his MD degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Dallas in 1938, and did his internship at Baltimore City Hospital in Maryland. He completed his pathology residency at Baylor studying under Dr. George T. Caldwell. After studying pathology with Dr. Caldwell, Dr. Ashworth became enamored with the subject, believing that pathology was the basic and scientific part of medicine because it dealt with the biology of the disease.

In 1940 Dr. Ashworth became an instructor in the Department of Pathology at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas. He was lauded by the American Medical Association for his publications on plasma, shock, and other issues that were of medical significance during wartime. When Baylor’s medical college moved to Houston, Dr. Ashworth remained in Dallas and continued teaching until he moved to Fort Worth.

In 1948 Dr. Ashworth moved to Fort Worth to work with Terrell Laboratories, but longing for getting back in academia, in 1957 he returned to Dallas to teach and research at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He had a reputation for being an engaging teacher who always made himself available to his students and for exhibiting compassion and care for his patients. He was also an expert in electron microscopy and developed the electron microscopy program at UT Southwestern. From 1957 until 1967, he served as professor and chairman of the Department of Pathology.

Dr. Ashworth made considerable contributions to the medical literature. He focused much of his research on cellular changes that occur in disease, particularly looking at the role of the liver in the body’s utilization of fat droplets, which play a role in arteriosclerosis. His research laid the groundwork for understanding endocytosis as applied to lipids and other substances, and was likely a precursor for Brown and Goldstein’s Nobel-Prize winning work in cholesterol metabolism.

In 1968 Dr. Ashworth established what became known as AM Laboratories. He continued in private practice of anatomical and clinical pathology until his death in 1985, by which time he had published over one hundred papers.

Texas Society of Pathologists
Dr. Ashworth joined the TSP in 1944. He assisted with publications in national, state, and local medical journals, and was instrumental in maintaining the science programs at both the state and national pathology meetings.
Dr. Ashworth served as president of the TSP in 1952, and in 1963 he received the George T. Caldwell, MD Award for his work in furthering pathology in Texas.

Notable Publication(s)
Chears Jr, W. C., & Ashworth, C. T. (1961). Electron microscopic study of the intestinal mucosa in Whipple's disease. Demonstration of encapsulated bacilliform bodies in the lesion. Gastroenterology, 41, 129.
Ashworth, C. T., Stembridge, V. A., & Sanders, E. (1960). Lipid absorption, transport and hepatic assimilation studied with electron microscopy. American Journal of Physiology--Legacy Content, 198(6), 1326-1328.
McGee, W. G., & Ashworth, C. T. (1963). Fine structure of chronic hypertensive arteriopathy in the human kidney. The American journal of pathology, 43(2), 273.