In Memoriam: Richard Page Hudson Jr.

Richard Page Hudson Jr. of Asheville, former professor and pathologist at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, died Sept. 30.

Hudson was the first chief medical examiner of North Carolina and helped develop North Carolina’s statewide medical examiner system to provide medical input in cases were death was suspicious, unnatural or unattended.

He held a doctor of medicine degree from the Medical College of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Richmond. He interned at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., before traveling to Japan to director the histopathology lab at the USAF Hospital Tachikawa.

He returned to the United States to complete a research fellowship with Harvard Medical School, then completed his pathology residency at the King’s County Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.

He served on the faculty of the State University of New York, the Medical College of Virginia and UNC – Chapel Hill, where he partnered with the School of Medicine to develop a statewide medical examiners system and a forensic pathology residency training program.

He co-founded the state’s Sudden Infant Death Program and the N.C. Child Medical Evaluation program for investigation of child abuse and neglect.

He practed at the ECU medical school for five years before retiring as professor emeritus.