The Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes annually hosts the Beverly Todd Towery Lecture at UofL Medicine Grand Rounds.

Beverly Todd Towery, M.D., was born in 1915 and thus was just the right age to be a part of the dramatic advances in medicine during and after World War II.

He loved the clinical aspect of his profession and he gloried in teaching.

Dr. Towery was at his best when doing either one, whether it was as an Army doctor during the invasion of Italy or on rounds in a teaching hospital, with students at his side.

He grew up in southern Kentucky and went to Western Kentucky State College where he received a bachelor's degree in 1936. He went to Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine and graduated first in his class.

Dr. Towery interned at Vanderbilt Hospital and spent a year as a resident in pathology at Mallory Institute in Boston.

For the following three years he was in uniform in the combat zones of Italy and France and emerged from the war a Major.

A civilian again, he became a senior resident in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital where he had the opportunity to work with Fuller Albright, which led to a lifelong preoccupation with endocrinology.

Subsequently, he spent two years as a fellow at Thorndike Memorial Laboratory at Boston City Hospital, working with Robert Williams.

Dr. Towery returned to Vanderbilt, a Markle Scholar and the first chief of a newly established Endocrine Division. In July 1956, he became professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville.

With his arrival, the students and house staff saw a dramatic surge in the quantity and quality of bedside teaching, not only by Dr. Towery himself, but by newly-motivated faculty members.

Away from the demands of medicine he found relaxation in cabinetmaking – furniture for the suburban home he shared with his wife, Jane, and their three children, Lynn, Todd and Anne – or diving and tennis, two sports in which he excelled.

In 1970, Dr. Towery asked for release as chairman of the department in order to become chief of the Section of Endocrinology. In the next few years he was able to devote full attention to his favorite medical activity, bedside teaching.

In 1974, he was struck by viral encephalitis. He never fully recovered and was unable to resume his brilliant career in teaching; he passed in June 1981.

The lectureship was established to honor the memory of this teacher, clinician, friend and gentleman, his colleagues in the medical community have established this lectureship.

Previous Towery Lecturers