In Memoriam: John Fordtran
John Fordtran, M.D., a former Professor and Chief of Gastroenterology who trained and mentored generations of physicians at UT Southwestern and at Baylor University Medical Center, died at his home north of Dallas on Feb. 23. He was 93.
Dr. Fordtran joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 1962, recruited by Dr. Donald W. Seldin. A year later, he became the institution’s first Chief of Gastroenterology, a position he held until 1979, when he became Chair of Internal Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center. There, he established the Diagnostic Center for Digestive Diseases, one of only two such centers in the world that offered advanced diagnosis and treatment of digestive diseases and cancers.
His pioneering research on fluid and ion transport across the intestinal epithelium and the role of glucose in this process significantly advanced the understanding of water and salt absorption in the human intestine. This work led to a new physiological classification of diarrheal diseases and informed their treatment.
“As an investigator, his contributions to gastroenterology and GI physiology are extensive,” says Ezra Burstein, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Chief of Digestive and Liver Diseases. “He stands as one of the most preeminent academic gastroenterologists of his generation.”
In 1973, Dr. Fordtran co-authored Gastrointestinal Disease, which became an authoritative source for training gastroenterology fellows for decades. It was considered by many clinicians as the gold standard of gastroenterology textbooks.
Dr. Fordtran was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1968 and served as its president eight years later. The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) recognized his contributions with multiple awards, including the Distinguished Achievement Award (1971), Fiterman Award for Clinical Research (1990), Distinguished Educator Award (1991), Julius Friedenwald Award (1993), and Janssen Award for Lifetime Achievement in Gastroenterology (1999). He also received the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine (1984) and was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London (1997).
Born in 1931 in Stockdale, Texas, John Satterfield Fordtran was the third child of William M. and Josephine (Bell) Fordtran, owners and operators of a small dairy farm seven miles outside of town. After graduating from the Texas Military Institute in 1949, he intended to go to college and then return to the family farm, but his father refused, saying the work was too hard and he would have difficulty making a profit. So, after spending three years studying pre-med at the University of Texas at Austin, he enrolled at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans. While still a medical student, he married Jewel Evans, in 1953.
Dr. Fordtran received his medical degree in 1956 and obtained internal medicine residency training at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He then spent two years in the Public Health Service, conducting hematology research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and serving as Chief of Medicine on the Navajo Reservation at Fort Defiance Hospital in Arizona.
He reached out to Dr. Seldin for assistance in securing a hematology fellowship, but Dr. Seldin had other plans. He believed Dr. Fordtran would excel in the emerging field of gastroenterology. Moreover, he had already made arrangements for Dr. Fordtran to train with the esteemed gastroenterologist Dr. Franz Ingelfinger in Boston.
Under Dr. Ingelfinger’s tutelage, he developed a nonabsorbable marker for gastrointestinal fluid volume, enabling significant advancements in the study of gut physiology. It would be the first of many achievements throughout his career.
In a 2018 blog post, he credited Dr. Ingelfinger with giving him an appreciation for conducting accurate analytical research, always with the goal of understanding human physiology and ameliorating disease. He also cited the influences of Drs. Seldin, Daniel Foster, and Jean Wilson, for inspiring him to conduct research that was meaningful.
“The most important thing that made me successful was that I’ve always had a research laboratory,” he said. “So whenever I got an idea, I could do an experiment to find out if it was a good idea, and then try to make the most of it.”
Dr. Fordtran is survived by his wife of 72 years, Jewel; their children, Bess (Brian) Stone, William (Mickey), Joey (Mark) Wolf, and Amy (Rick) Garrison; five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
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Dr. Burstein holds the Berta M. and Dr. Cecil O. Patterson Chair in Gastroenterology.