Oglesby Paul, MD

1916 — 2007

Oglesby Paul was born in Pennsylvania and educated at Harvard College and Medical School, receiving his MD in 1942. While he was a professor of medicine and the Vice President of Health Sciences at Northwestern University in Chicago, he became the principal investigator of the Western Electric Study of Cardiovascular Diseases, one of the pioneer cohort studies of CVD risk.

He was central to the efforts over a number of years to found a Scientific Council for CVD Epidemiology within the American Heart Association (AHA), before and after serving as association president. He organized funding and facilities for annual meetings of those involved in the early days of the field until the Council was established and then served a senior leadership role in the Council.

Paul chaired the Steering Committee of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Multiple Risk Factor Trial during the 1970s. He returned to Boston as professor emeritus in 1977 and became director of admissions for the medical school, after which he became an author and wrote a delightful biography of Paul Dudley White, called Take Heart. Oglesby Paul was one of the leading internists in the U.S. who early saw the need for, and fostered careers and pursuits in, CVD epidemiological research. (HB)

Please click here for a description of the Chicago Western Electric Study.