Howard H. Hyatt ’46 — a prominent physician and longtime former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health — died March 2 at his home in Cambridge. He passed away at the age of 98.
During his decades of work in the academic and administrative departments of the Boston hospital system and Harvard University, Hyatt established numerous academic programs and taught countless students.
As an administrator, Hyatt sought to expand the connections between medicine and global health, teaching students the appropriate skills to navigate an increasingly complex healthcare system. At Harvard, Hyatt also worked to strengthen the School of Public Health and strengthen its standing within the university.
Sheila Davis, CEO of Partners in Health, a nonprofit global health organization where Hyatt serves on the board, praised Hyatt's lasting positive impact.
“His legacy will live on through the lives of the many people he improved and the many he inspired to work in practical solidarity with some of the world's poorest communities,” Davis said.
“Eminent Clinician”
Howard Hyatt was born on July 22, 1925, in Long Island, New York, to Alexander and Dorothy Hyatt. His family then moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, where his father, a Lithuanian immigrant, owned a small shoe company.
Despite his early academic success and graduating high school as valedictorian, Hyatt was initially rejected by Harvard University. During the period he sought admission to the university, Harvard still held quotas on the number of Jewish students it could admit.
But in 1944, after his high school principal protested to Harvard's admissions director, Hyatt was admitted to the university. He was a member of Dunster House, but graduated after just two years. Hyatt then attended Harvard Medical School and graduated again in just two years.
While attending Harvard University, Hyatt met Doris Bierlinger, a student at Wellesley College, who he became his wife in 1948.
After graduating from medical school, Hyatt moved to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to complete his clinical internship and residency. She then served as a research fellow at Weill Cornell Medical Center and an assistant at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
From 1953 to 1955, Hyatt also served as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health before returning to BIDMC and HMS.
Five years later, Hyatt left the United States to study and work for a year at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with renowned French biologists and Nobel laureates Jacques Monod and François Jacob.
In 1963, Hyatt became Chief Physician of BIDMC and Bloomgart Professor of Medicine at HMS.
During his tenure as attending physician, Dr. Hiatt used his research background to expand BIDMC's goals and transform the center into one of the first teaching hospitals in the country to develop both primary care education and research programs. . In particular, I focused on the clinical application of molecular biology.
In time, Hyatt once again rose through the academic and administrative ranks at Harvard, this time to an entirely new corner of the university.
In 1972, then-Harvard University President Derek C. Bok appointed Hyatt dean of the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, calling him “a proven administrator and distinguished clinician and researcher.” .
In an interview with The Crimson after his appointment, Hiatt acknowledged his lack of experience in public health, but said he wanted to bring a fresh perspective to the school.
In particular, Hyatt pointed out the “distortion of priorities in the health sector” and emphasized the need for comprehensive preventive health programs in addition to medical care.
In a 2006 interview with Web of Stories, Hyatt recalled a conversation he had with me before I chose him as HSPH dean.
During the meeting, Hyatt said Bok said the school was “not in good shape intellectually.”
“'You have three choices,'” Hyatt reportedly told me. “'We can close it down, we can merge it with a medical school, we can change it in a way that is visible from the outside.'”
I refused the former and instead asked Hyatt to help rebuild the school. Hyatt agreed.
“We raised the level of the school.”
Bok said Hyatt had two “extraordinary” talents as a dean.
“One was the ability to persuade other prominent scholars within the university of the intellectual interest in public health issues,” Bok said.
The second was Hyatt's tendency to attract promising young scholars.
“He's done a really great job of finding some very bright, very ambitious new blood – people who are passionate about the health system as a whole,” Bok added.
Julio J. Frenk, who served as HSPH dean from 2009 to 2015, said Hyatt identified a “very fundamental relationship” between medicine and public health and succeeded in advancing it during his tenure. He said he did.
“He has demonstrated that and greatly improved the School of Public Health,” Frank said.
Barry R. Bloom, dean of HSPH from 1998 to 2008, led Hyatt to create the School of Health Policy and Management, dedicated to teaching students the skills needed to manage and lead health systems. He pointed out his medical expertise.
“He knew a lot about medicine. He knew a lot about running a hospital,” Bloom said. “And he knew the chaos in health care financing, the lack of accountability, the difficulty of dealing with reimbursement.”
“Every school of public health in the country now has a department of health policy and management,” he said.
Hyatt also established the HSPH Summer Program in Clinical Effectiveness, an educational program for clinicians that integrates epidemiological thinking into clinical research.
“This remains one of the most successful programs at Harvard School of Public Health,” Frank said.
But Hyatt's accomplishments at HSPH extended beyond his administrative efforts.
Howard Hyatt's son, Jonathan P. Hiatt '70, says his father was one of the few pro-worker administrators in the early 1980s.
Jonathan Hiatt said that during Hiatt's tenure as HSPH dean, Harvard administrators mounted a union organizing campaign that was largely resisted with great force by university officials.
“My father was the only principal who was supportive,” he said.
However, the era of rapid change during Hyatt's tenure provoked considerable faculty backlash.
In 1978, two-thirds of HSPH's senior faculty signed a petition calling for his resignation.
Afterwards, Mr. Bok defended Mr. Hyatt and strongly rebutted the teachers.
“The problem, as I expected from the beginning, was that they didn't want to change and didn't know how much they needed to change,” Bok said in an interview with The Crimson on Friday.
“Mr. Howard has done the kind of work that must be done if the school is to achieve the truly prestigious reputation that Harvard deserves,” he added.
Six years after the petition, Hyatt resigned as dean. Still, he insisted his resignation was not in response to his criticism.
In fact, Hiatt said 10 years as dean had been long enough and it was time to take the next step.
“Such a gift”
Mr. Hyatt's background in medicine and health care also drew him into the role of political advisor.
In 1980, Hyatt met with Pope John Paul II and joined a special delegation dedicated to educating world leaders about the health effects of nuclear war.
A year later, Hyatt met with then-US President Ronald Reagan to discuss nuclear war. In a New York Times interview after the meeting, Mr. Hyatt tried to “personalize” the harmful effects, telling President Reagan that “800,000 people are going to go into shock from burns and radiation.” said.
“People who talk about winning a nuclear war or surviving don't know what they're talking about,” Hyatt said at the time.
In 1985, after leaving his command post at HSPH, Hyatt was hired by Brigham and Women's Hospital.
There, he helped establish the Clinical Effectiveness Research Training Program, one of the first post-training programs to prepare trainees to conduct clinical trials.
Twenty years later, in 2001, Hyatt joined BWH's Global Health Equity division with two former mentees: renowned Harvard physician Paul Farmer and former World Bank president and former Dartmouth president Jim Yong Kim. co-founded.
Hyatt, Farmer, and Kim, along with other colleagues, founded and launched the Global Health Equity Residency just three years later. The program was later renamed to honor Hyatt and his wife for their guidance and contributions to BWH.
Joseph J. Rattigan, current director of the residency, praised Hyatt's ability to connect with students.
“Howard was the kind of leader you aspire to be,” Rattigan said. “He was selfless, a good listener, and really tried to understand the person he was talking to.”
“Almost all of the alumni were very close to Howard,” he says.
Bloom also noted the number of notable students Hyatt has taught over the years.
“Many of the giants of academic medicine and public health were mentored by him as medical residents,” he said.
Hyatt has long-standing relationships with mentees through its involvement with Partners in Health, a global health organization dedicated to providing better health care to underprivileged people around the world, founded by Farmer and Yong. I showed it. Hyatt was an early supporter of the organization and served on its board of directors.
Jonathan Hiatt said Howard Hiatt was passionate about making Partners in Health aware of the disparities in health care not only in developing countries but also in the United States.
In particular, Hyatt worked to improve the health status of Boston's Roxbury neighborhood and the Navajo Nation.
HMS Associate Professor Sonya S. Singh, who worked with Hyatt to extend the global health equity model to the Navajo Nation, said that during home visits, Hyatt “treats everyone as if they were his own family.” He said he had the ability to connect. ”
“It was such a gift to witness,” she added.
According to Bloom, Hyatt was always focused on “the vision of where things were going.”
“As a famous hockey player once said, you don't have to watch where the puck goes. Just watch where it goes,” Bloom said. “And that was Howard.”
—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. X Follow her at @VeronicaHPaulus.
—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. X Follow her at @akshayaravi22.
