Cary Frederick Irons, Jr. served as campus physician and director of student health for over three decades, from 1947 through 1981, leading in the development and expansion of the contemporary ECU Student Health Services.
Irons was born February 3, 1913 in Pickaway, West Virginia. After completing his undergraduate training at Washington and Lee University, he finished his M.D. at the Medical College of Virginia. In 1939, he married Malene Grant, his anatomy lab partner at med school. During World War II, Irons served as a battalion surgeon in the 56th General Hospital in Liege, Belgium. After the war, Drs. Fred and Malene Irons moved to Greenville to practice medicine. Dr. Fred Irons worked in anesthesiology at Pitt County Hospital, then located at the intersection of Johnson and Woodlawn Streets, east of downtown. Irons also ran a private practice.
Following the construction of a new facility in 1951, known as Pitt County Memorial Hospital (now the offices of the Pitt County School System off West Fifth Street), Irons served as chief of staff from 1959 to 1961, and as the director in 1970. Along with his wife, Dr. Malene Irons, and his colleague, Dr. Andrew A. Best, Dr. Fred Irons played an instrumental role in the desegregation of PCMH.
From 1947, Irons served as the college physician at East Carolina’s infirmary even while maintaining his duties at PCMH. In 1955, Irons was elected president of the Pitt County Medical Society. In 1963, Gov. Terry Sanford appointed Irons to the N.C. Board of Nursing. In that capacity, Irons contributed to East Carolina’s efforts to secure a medical school.
In 1967, Irons became the first full-time director of Student Health Service on campus. As director, Irons encouraged students to use the services by emphasizing patient confidentiality, an important assurance on any college campus. During his tenure, student health services swelled from a part-time physician program to one including a full staff of physicians, nurses, and medical technicians capable of addressing the needs of ECU’s 15,000 students. In 1983, Irons took on a clinical professorship at the ECU School of Medicine. In 1997, Irons, 84, retired from medical practice. The following year, Chancellor Richard Eakin presented him with a Founder’s Day Service Award.
Sources
- Fred and Malene Irons Papers (LL 02.63). William E. Laupus Health Sciences Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
- Oral History Collection (LL 02.03). William E. Laupus Health Sciences Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
Citation Information
Title: Cary Frederick Irons, Jr.
Author: John A. Tucker, PhD
Date of Publication: 3/22/2018