Joan Hodgman’s daughter, Ann Schwartz, ’75, PhD ’99, said that in medical school at UCSF, her mother had a professor who tried to make all his female students cry. Hodgman was determined not to shed a tear, and didn’t.
Joan Elizabeth Hodgman, ’43, was a leader and a pioneering woman in neonatology. She died August 10 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) at a family cabin in Oregon. She was 84.
During 60 years at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, Hodgman served for three decades as director of its newborn division. She helped to develop its intensive care unit for sick and premature babies and played a central role in dramatically reducing the hospital’s infant mortality rate—50 percent in just 10 years.
A prolific researcher (among her interests was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Hodgman also was a successful administrator, clinician and teacher. Although she downplayed the challenges of being female when the medical field was primarily male, she made a point to encourage women in the field.
As medical advancements enabled doctors to save more severely debilitated newborns, ethical questions arose concerning the extent to which physicians should go to save newborns’ lives. Breaking from many, Hodgman argued that there comes a point when further medical treatment does more harm to the infant than good. She received numerous professional awards, including the 1999 Apgar Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Hodgman’s husband, Amos Schwartz, predeceased her. In addition to Ann, Hodgman is survived by another daughter, Susan di Pietro; a brother; and four grandchildren.
