John E. Bordley Chair in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery

JOHN E. BORDLEY, Med 1929, who held the title of Andelot Professor Emeritus, was director of the Department of Otolaryngology from 1952 to 1969, with a joint appointment at the School of Public Health in environmental health sciences. He is considered to have been a major architect of otolaryngology, and was responsible for many key research and health care advances including co-establishment of the hospital’s Hearing and Speech Clinic, the first organization of its type affiliated with a medical center. The author of nearly 150 scientific articles, Dr. Bordley was often ahead of his time: in the 1950s, he urged his department toward increased specialization in training residents, which today is standard practice. In the 1960s, he revealed the strong impact of German measles on the health of children and fetuses. Dr. Bordley also helped to develop skin-resistance audiometry, a sophisticated method for testing the hearing of young children, and he fitted youngsters with hearing aids before this was an accepted practice. He was the recipient of many awards, including a Presidential Citation, a gold medal award from the International Federation of Otorhinolaryngology and selection as honorary president of the seventh World Congress of Otolaryngology in 1985. Dr. Bordley died in 1993 at the age of 90.