The Robert H. Heptinstall Fellowship Fund
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The Robert H. Heptinstall Fellowship Fund was established in 1999 to honor Robert H. Heptinstall, M.D., former Baxley Professor and Director of Pathology, and author of the classic textbook, "Heptinstall's Pathology of the Kidney." The income from the fund supports a fellow in the Division of Renal Pathology.
Dr. Heptinstall, known to many simply as “Heppy,” was born on July 22, 1920, in Keswick, England, and received his Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1944 from King’s College in London. After six months as a surgery intern at Charing Cross Hospital, he entered the Royal Army Medical Corps as Regimental Medicine Officer during World War II. While in the military, Dr. Heptinstall studied a series of kidneys which had been removed by Sir George White Pickering, F.R.S., to treat patients with severe hypertension. This interaction sparked Dr. Heptinstall’s interest in renal pathology. In 1947, after his military service, he returned to London for pathology training at St. Mary’s Hospital. In 1948, he received his medical degree from Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, where he worked as a pathologist until 1954.
The following year, Dr. Heptinstall was awarded an Eli Lilly Traveling Fellowship and came to Baltimore to train as a fellow in the Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology. He joined the Department’s faculty as an associate professor in 1957 and, in 1969, was appointed the Baxley Professor and Director of Pathology—a title he held until his retirement in 1988. In this role, Dr. Heptinstall led the Department from the microscope age into the modern molecular age, and, importantly, he served as a mentor to over 200 residents and fellows.
An exceptional pathologist and leader, Dr. Heptinstall published numerous articles throughout his career on infections of the kidney, atherosclerosis, and the reversibility of malignant hypertension. He also authored the classic textbook Heptinstall's Pathology of the Kidney. Dr. Heptinstall was awarded the Gold Medal of the Danish Surgical Society, the David M. Hume Memorial Award of the National Kidney Foundation, and the Jean Hamburger Award by the International Society of Nephrology. In 2011, the Renal Pathology Society renamed its lifetime achievement award the “Robert H. Heptinstall Lifetime Achievement Award,” honoring his enormous legacy to the field.
Following his retirement, Dr. Heptinstall held the title Distinguished Service Professor of Pathology in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine until his death in January 2021 at the age of 100. His legacy at Johns Hopkins, in the Department of Pathology, and in the field of renal pathology is an enduring one.
If you would like to honor Dr. Heptinstall's legacy, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution in his memory to the Robert H. Heptinstall Fellowship Fund through the Department of Pathology's secure online giving form by clicking the button below.
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