Hanold, Fred H., 1915-2006

Fred H. Hanold, M.D.

Fred Heath Hanold (1915-2006) was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey in 1915, and spent his childhood in East Orange, New Jersey. His undergraduate degree from New York University was completed in 1937 and he received his M.D. from the same institution in 1940. Dr. Hanold started his internship and internal medicine residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City in 1940, but this training was interrupted by World War II. He was part of the U.S. Navy Medical Corps from 1942-1947 and spent some of the war on a ship in the Pacific. During his time in the military, he attended the U.S. Navy's School of Aviation Medicine in Pensacola, Florida, which included flight training. In 1947 Dr. Hanold returned to Bellevue Hospital to complete his residency.

The war contributed to the change in the practice of medicine in the United States. When Dr. Hanold's training ended in 1949, he entered a profession that no longer could meet the expectations with which he had started his residency before the war. His desire to stay in New York City and combine a private practice with a teaching career was not practical for the family man he had become. After seeing an ad for a salaried position with private practice opportunities at the Santa Fe railroad hospital, Memorial Hospital, in Albuquerque, Dr. Hanold traveled across country to interview. Having decided that the job was a good opportunity and that the level of medical practice was what he wanted, Dr. Hanold and his family moved to New Mexico in 1950.

Working first at the railroad hospital with a part-time practice, Dr. Hanold went to a full-time private practice in 1954. In 1974, he returned to Memorial Hospital, where he worked until he retired from practice in 1980. During these years, Dr. Hanold was Chief for the Bernalillo County Cardiac Clinic, from 1952-1972, a New Mexico delegate to the first and second annual meetings of the American Society of Internal Medicine, and Chief of Medicine and Chief of Staff at Memorial Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital, Bernalillo County Hospital, and Presbyterian Hospital. He was an attending physician at the Albuquerque Veterans Administration Hospital from 1952-1960, Clinical Attending at UNM School of Medicine from 1963-1976, and a clinical professor in Medicine at the medical school for many years. Dr. Hanold's interest in medical education led him to start a one year rotating internship and three year residency in medicine at the Bernalillo County-Indian Hospital in 1954 and 1955.

Dr. Hanold continued as an active participant in the New Mexico Medical Society and at the School of Medicine after retirement while he pursued his interest in the history of medicine in New Mexico. For many years, he was chairman of the Medical Society's History of Medicine Committee, which sponsors the collection of oral histories of health care professionals throughout the state. Dr. Hanold died April 17, 2006.