archives collection - American Academy of Family Physicians ...

photocopied scrapbook from the Colorado AFP to Dr. Price commemorating his term as AAFP
president.
Pruessner, Harold T., M.D. (1925-2007)
1949-1992
8 boxes
On February 10, 1925, Harold T. Pruessner, M.D., a lifelong Texas native, was born in San Antonio,
Texas. He received his undergraduate training from Texas A&M and his medical training from the
University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston. As a medical student at UTMB,
Pruessner, along with a few of his peers, responded to the Texas City disaster in which 581 people
were killed in an ammonium nitrate explosion. The event was hectic and the injured spoke mostly
French, making the situation as frustrating as it was dangerous. In a 1998 letter to Stanley L. Gilbert
M.D., Dr. Pruessner called it “a real life learning process.” A year after that incident, in 1948,
Pruessner graduated from UTMB and went to work for the San Antonio State Mental Hospital.
Following that he entered Philadelphia General Hospital (PGH) on a two-year internship. It was at
PGH that Dr. Pruessner met his to-be wife Alma Morgan, R.N. He also joined the Navy while at
PGH, and was assigned to the US Naval hospital at St. Albans in New York. He stay was short,
however, as he was soon shipped to Korea where he became the medical officer on the Gen. C.C.
Ballou transport ship. Dr. Pruessner spent most of his time in the Navy traveling back and forth
across the Pacific Ocean on ships transporting soldiers to and from Korea. After eighteen months of
this type of work, he was stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas where he would practice family
medicine and surgery for the next twenty years; he was initially in solo practice, but afterward joined
Bud Holt in creating a joint practice. It was during this period that Dr. Pruessner joined the AAFP
(then AAGP) in 1956. In 1973, Dr. Pruessner joined the University of Texas Medical School at
Houston (UTMS-H) as a professor, and aided in the formulation of their family practice residency
program. He also served as the third Chairman of the Department of Family Practice and Community
Medicine (FPCM). Dr. Pruessner retired in December of 1994 and resided in Caldwell, Texas until
his death in 2007.
The collection of Harold T. Pruessner, M.D. is rather extensive, consisting of eight boxes of material.
The initial box contains original copies of the AMA News from 1965-1975 as well as a large two
volume TAFP “Family Medicine for the 90’s” booklet. There is also a miscellaneous files box
covering 1965 to 1998 with a short overview of his life, information on the UTMS-H rotation course,
his curriculum vitae, and several files containing data on research, projects, case histories/lectures
and seminars on various subjects. Furthermore, there are three boxes containing miscellaneous
correspondence and articles; one covering 1960 to 1969 and two covering the 1970 to 1995 period.
The fourth and final miscellaneous box covers correspondence, papers, and journal articles from
1970 to 1979. There is also a box of photocopied medical articles spanning a forty-two year period
between 1949 and 1991. There is also one box covering articles, brochures, manuscripts, and papers
composed by Dr. Pruessner from 1965 to 1992.
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