When Dr. Claude R. Joyner, Jr. was told that he had won the Peter J. Safer Pulse of Pittsburgh Award from the local chapter of the American Heart Associate, his first comment was that there must be someone else more worthy. He said this despite the fact that in the minds of many, he was the father of echocardiography, a discovery rated among the top 10 cardiovascular innovations of the 20th century. Even so, he had a gentle way and unassuming manner, that belied his momentous accomplishments. Ultimately, he accepted the award and immediately established a fund to support the work of young trainees as they embarked on their own careers. Instead of turning the light on himself, he wanted his award to focus on a fund to support the work of others. Thus, The Claude R. Joyner Research Fund of the American Heart Association was born.
Dr. Joyner was at the University of Pennsylvania, when in the 1960's, he began his pioneering work with the notion that sound might be used to image the heart, just as sonar had been used for imaging by ships during World War II. He and an engineer named Paul Reed went to an Army-Navy store on Broad Street in Philadelphia and bought second-hand components from submarines. They then spent months trying to figure out how they might be used to image the human heart. At the time, the electrocardiogram was the principal tool used to evaluate the heart, one capable of assessing electrical activity but not the structure or performance of the heart. The echocardiogram, at last, gave clinicians the ability to look literally inside the heart to observe its structure and its function in the live patient. After four decades, Claude Joyner's echocardiography remains the most enduring imagining technique in cardiology.
Dr. Joyner was born in Winston-Salem, NC. He earned a bachelors’ degree in chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1947 and a medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 1949. He was a medical resident at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem and also in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps at a naval base in Oakland, CA. Upon discharge form the Armed Forces in 1952, he became a fellow in cardiology and national heart trainee at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He taught there from 1952–1971, then briefly at Hahnemann University before becoming chairman of the Department of Medicine at Alleghany General Hospital and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in 1972. As a result of his pioneering work in echocardiography, he was named senior lecturer of engineering in medicine at Carnegie Mellon University in 1977.
From 1984 to 1992, Dr. Joyner directed the division of Cardiology at Allegheny General while serving as a member of the faculty of the Medical College of Pennsylvania. During this period, he established himself as an educator in cardiology, bequeathing further development of his monumental discovery to others so that he might devote his full attention to his first love—teaching. Hundreds of cardiologists who trained with him went on to extraordinarily distinguished careers of their own, thanks to his mentorship.
In late 1996, Dr. Joyner stepped down as chairman of the Department of Medicine at Allegheny General, although he continued for a time as a medical school Associate Dean. He died on November 17, 2006, leaving behind his wife, Margaret, children Glen Joyner Dias of Orangeburg, S.C. and Courtney Joyner of Los Angeles, and three stepchildren, Rives Rea Yost of Sewickly, Robinson Rea Scarborough of Malibu, Calif. and K. Oliver Rea of Sewickley.