Looking back on a lifetime of excellence

Dr. John Hoidal, MD ’65

by Brett Moser x’03/’21

Dr. John Hoidal, MD ’65 has been a leader and difference maker in higher education for the past 46 years. As I sat in his living room, I was struck by his tenacity. This is a man who dedicated his life to the future of medicine, working fervently to advance the medical field.

“For so long I was looking forward,” Dr. Hoidal explained, reflecting on the requirements of his work. “But now it is time for me to look back.” As we watched the sunset from his mountain house outside of Salt Lake City, that’s just what he did. And like all things in his life, he did it exceptionally well.

After graduating from Hopkins (MN) High School, Dr. Hoidal sought out a liberal arts education at a private college. He arrived on campus in the fall of 1961 not knowing what to expect because, “Choosing a college to attend was a much lower key activity…than it is today.”

Hoidal’s father was a close friend of Jamestown College basketball coach and athletic director EJ Cassell. His mother was a North Dakota native, so the prospect of attending Jamestown for college, “although unusual, wasn’t totally foreign….so I decided to give it a try,” explained Dr. Hoidal.

This good ol’ college try led him to earn a degree in Chemistry in 1965, while playing quarterback and pole vaulting. Hoidal excelled in the classroom as well, graduating summa cum laude with the President’s Key.

He described his time at Jamestown College with the memory of it being “like a small village where everyone seemed connected….my greatest memories are the friends I made, the interchange within classrooms – made possible because of the small class sizes, and the accessibility and dedication of the professors.”

As he was nearing graduation, JC classmate Don Sand `65 provided the nudge of confidence Hoidal needed to pursue medical school. “I thought, ‘If Don can do this, I certainly can too!’” he joked.

The decision to attend medical school at the University of Minnesota led to a lifetime of contributions to academic excellence, fusing together all aspects of medicine, including patient care, research, teaching, administration, and health policy.

“Jamestown College fully prepared me for the rigors of medical school. The education I obtained allowed me to start broad and embrace diverse educational experiences,” he explained. “This perspective, provided by the broad-spectrum approach, afforded the opportunity to see clinical and scientific issues from an inclusive perspective, and to bring (hopefully) creative new approaches to challenges in medicine.”

Dr. Hoidal’s career started in the classroom as an assistant and associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. Early in his faculty appointment, he became involved in bench research, investigating basic mechanisms of lung injury, focusing on the pathobiochemical mechanisms of emphysema.

This period was one of significant personal and career growth, leading him to the University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences in Memphis, where he served as Professor of Medicine and Director of Pulmonary Medicine.

In 1987, Dr. Hoidal transitioned to the mountains of Salt Lake City after being recruited by the University of Utah. He held the position of the Renzetti Presidential Professor of Medicine and Chief of Pulmonary/Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. After 15 years as Division Chief, Hoidal was appointed Chairman of the Department of Medicine, overseeing 1200 employees and 400 physicians.

Dr. Hoidal served in this role for 15 years until his retirement in February of 2022. Throughout his tenure, Hoidal continued to be active in mentoring, clinical care, and research. “These activities allowed me to travel and lecture extensively and establish collaborators and colleagues through the globe,” he explained. Dr. Hoidal contributed to scholarly work in the medical field with 177 peer-reviewed journal articles, 15 review articles, 14-chapter contributions to medical textbooks, multiple editorials, and to date – three more pending publications.

Though Dr. Hoidal’s goal when we started talking was to reflect on the past, he couldn’t help but look to the future once more, leaving me with this sentiment: “The University of Jamestown, at its core, must remain an essential liberal arts institution. I fervently believe that the broader emphasis results in more creative, more agile individuals, who can make connections leading to major advances in technologies and knowledge. Academics needs to be the center piece of the institution.”