In Memoriam: M. Colin Jordan, MD

Abstract

M. Colin Jordan, former Infectious Diseases Division Director and Professor of Medicine at both the University of Minnesota and the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), died April 8, 2015. Colin lived an exceptional life, touching patients and colleagues with his excellence and high expectations as a physician and scientist and his rare combination of warmth and nurturing with cutting, yet understated, humor. He did not talk much about his past, so few may know he was born in a bomb shelter in England in 1941, came to the United States aboard the Queen Elizabeth at age 6, and was signed by Walt Disney studios as a dancer at the age of 12. Colin was an accomplished college baseball player, and after graduation from Loyola Marymount he was offered a contract with the Los Angeles Angels; however, instead of becoming a baseball player, he decided to go into medicine. After medical school at Creighton, he trained at the University of Washington (UW), where he worked with many outstanding clinicians, including their stellar Infectious Diseases group and Bill Kirby, with whom he wrote one of his first papers. His time at UW helped inspire his career, including his becoming an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer from 1970 to 1972. An early indication of both his talent and humor was his publication in the American Journal of Public Health, from an EIS investigation, entitled “Salmonellosis among restaurant patrons: the incisive role of a meat slicer”. After stints as a faculty member at UCLA and Davis, he became Division Chief at the University of Minnesota, serving from 1984 to 1998. At Minnesota, where I had the pleasure of working with him, he developed a strong multi-institution Division into a warm and collegial group. From 1998 to 2005, he served as Chief of ID and the first E.H. Cooley Professor of Medicine at OHSU. A staunch believer that scientifically well trained clinicians can provide important insights and have a major role in research, he made many contributions to the understanding of cytomegalovirus infection including, particularly, its transmissibility through sexual contact, murine models of disease, the biology of latency, resistance to antivirals, and molecular detection for diagnostic and research uses. Everywhere he served or led, he influenced students, other trainees, patients, and peers with not only his critical thinking as a scientist and clinician, but also his decency, fairness and compassion, and his low tolerance for puffery and pretension, the latter remarkable for an accomplished academician and almost as rare then as now. He helped motivate and propel many students and trainees into successful careers as physicians and scientists. As he watched medicine and science becoming a business, rather than the calling and commitment which he advocated for and lived by example, it's impossible to know whether Colin ever dreamed of again standing on a major league baseball field. In any case, to all whose lives he touched, he will always be seen as a Major League physician, scientist, and, most important, friend. He leaves his wife, Pamela Lahrs, his previous spouses, Bonnie Baskin and Patricia Jordan, daughters Teresa and Angela, son Colin Jr., and 4 grandchildren. Many fascinating aspects of his life and work, from that bomb shelter to academia, and of his generous personality are captured in his enjoyable book, “Briefings from a Doctor's Foxhole”. If desired, donations in his honor can be made to OSHU or the charity of your choice.