Initially, St. Mary’s Hospital had no resident physician. As the number of patients admitted to the new hospital rapidly increased, that absence was keenly felt.

In June 1927, Dr. Harry E. Beard became the hospital’s first intern.

Dr. Beard came to St. Mary’s fresh from his graduation at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He would go on to be very much part of the hospital’s story until his death in 1963.

A West Virginia native, Dr. Beard was born October 30, 1897, at Upland in Mason County. He attended Rio Grande College in Ohio, West Virginia University and Ohio University before entering medical school.

He would later reminisce that he was very nervous his first few days at St. Mary’s. He had never been around Catholic nuns before and, having heard so many unflattering stories about them, was initially suspicious of them. But he soon found that his suspicions were groundless.

Dr. Beard quickly proved himself to be a conscientious and diligent intern. When Christmas of 1927 came, he heard there was going to be a midnight mass. He insisted that all the Sisters should go, volunteering to assume their nursing duties in their absence.

As the young hospital’s only intern, he had to work both day and night, yet was never “too busy” or “too tired” to respond when needed. He insisted on being called for every emergency. At times, when he had been working long and hard, the Sisters didn’t call him – even though he made it clear he didn’t like that.

Dr. Beard was president of the West Virginia Obstetrics and Gynecology Society in 1940. In World War II, he served as a major in the Army Medical Corps in Europe. After the war, he returned to Huntington and St. Mary’s, where he was chief of staff in 1952. In 1947, he became medical director of the hospital’s School of Nursing, a post he continued to hold at the time of his death.

A great asset to St. Mary’s and the community, Dr. Harry E. Beard is remembered as an enormously hardworking and caring physician.

St. Mary’s Medical Center is proud to induct him into our Wall of Fame.