Henry P. Pendergrass, 83, radiologist, teacher
Henry Pancoast Pendergrass, 83,of Gladwyne, a radiologist and educator, died of pneumonia Sunday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Dr. Pendergrass graduated from the Haverford School and earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University. He interned at Pennsylvania Hospital and completed a residency in radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania before joining the hospital's staff in 1953.
Henry Pancoast Pendergrass, 83,of Gladwyne, a radiologist and educator, died of pneumonia Sunday at Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Dr. Pendergrass graduated from the Haverford School and earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University. He interned at Pennsylvania Hospital and completed a residency in radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania before joining the hospital's staff in 1953.
His father, Eugene P. Pendergrass, who was chairman of the radiology department at Penn at the time, pioneered the use of X-rays to diagnose occupational lung disease in miners and other workers exposed to toxic materials.
Dr. Pendergrass followed in his father's footsteps, said a colleague, Dr. Luther Brady. "Henry was an internationally recognized expert in pulmonary diagnosis using radiological techniques. As a physician he was full of compassion for his patients and was highly admired by friends and colleagues around the world. His expertise will be sorely missed."
Brady, who is a professor at Drexel University College of Medicine, met Dr. Pendergrass when they were both at Penn. They remained friends even though their careers took them to different hospitals. They were squash and tennis partners over the years, Brady said, and their families took ski trips together.
Dr. Pendergrass left Penn in 1958 to join the department of radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He earned a master's degree from Harvard School of Public Health and served a fellowship at Queen Square Neurological Institute in London.
From 1976 to 1995, he was a professor and vice chairman of the department of radiology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn. After becoming professor emeritus at Vanderbilt, he was adjunct professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine for several years until the late 1990s.
Dr. Pendergrass was involved in many medical, educational and research programs and published numerous articles. He was especially proud, his family said, of an article published in 1964 in the New England Journal of medicine about his work in Peru while aboard the medical mission ship, SS Hope.
He and his father, who died in 1980, served terms as president of the Radiological Society of North America.
In 1993, Dr. Pendergrass' first wife, Carol Dodson Pendergrass, and their two oldest daughters Lisa Johnson and Sharon Batey, were killed in a hot-air ballooning accident near Aspen, Colo., where they were vacationing.
He is survived by his second wife, Carol Minster Pendergrass. They had grown up together on the Main Line and reconnected through mutual friends after both lost spouses. Dr. Pendergrass is also survived by daughters Deborah Reaves and Margaret Sanders; stepchildren Yardly Jenkins and James and Frank Roberts; and eight grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, 625 Montgomery Ave., Bryn Mawr.
Donations may be made to the Radiological Society of North America Research & Education Foundation, 820 Jorie Blvd., Oak Brook, Ill. 60523.