Obituary: Robert Utiger, MD
BWH mourns the loss of Robert Utiger, MD, clinical professor of medicine. He died June 29 at age 76.
An expert on thyroid function tests and an early proponent of the health benefits of Vitamin D, he co-edited Werner & Ingbar’s The Thyroid: A Fundamental and Clinical Text, served as deputy editor of The New England Journal of Medicine and as editor of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and Clinical Thyroidology.
Dr. Utiger’s own research focused on pituitary–thyroid function and disease. He developed radioimmunoassays for thyrotropin, triiodothyronine, and thyrotropin-releasing hormone, and used these assays to develop new information about the physiology and pathophysiology of the hypothalamic–pituitary–-thyroid axis. He was one of the first to recognize the important role played by the activation of thyroxine by the iodothyronine deiodinases. He published more than 100 scientific papers and held prominent positions on various organization boards and committees.
Dr. Utiger received his medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 1957, followed by postgraduate training in internal medicine and endocrinology at Washington University and the National Institutes of Health. He served as chief of endocrinology at both the University of Pennsylvania and University of North Carolina Schools of Medicine. He joined the HMS faculty as a clinical professor of medicine at BWH in 1989.
The Conference Room at 221 Longwood Ave. in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Hypertension will be named after Dr. Utiger. It is dedicated by his colleagues in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to teaching, patient care and scholarship.
Dr. Utiger is survived by his wife, Sally (Baldwin) Utiger; two daughters, Jane Lyon Utiger of Fort Collins, Colo., and Nancy Baldwin Murphy of Hampstead, N.H.; a son, David Frey Utiger of Peru, Vt.; three grandchildren, a nephew, and six nieces.
Contributions in his memory can be made to Williams College, c/o Development Office, 75 Park St., Williamstown, Mass. 01267 (e-mail: alumni.relations@Williams.edu) or to the Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 1228, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130.
A reception to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Utiger will be Friday, Nov. 21, 4 – 6 p.m., at the rotunda in the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School, 77 Ave. Louis Pasteur, Boston.