Arthur L. Ludwick, Jr., papers

Arthur L. Ludwick Jr, M.D., KU Medical School Class of 1936, died in 2008 at age 94, after a long and distinguished career as a Family Practice physician and surgeon. He practiced medicine for over 50 years, the majority in Wenatchee, WA, performing surgery, delivering babies, making house calls, and treating generations of families.

In the fall of 1930, 16-year-old Art entered KU as a freshman, still stunned by the sudden death of his physician father, Arthur L. Ludwick Sr. Ludwick Sr. had been a psychiatrist and family practice doctor in Overland Park, KS, and had served in the army during WWI treating shell-shocked aviators as one of our nation’s first formally trained flight surgeons.

As an only child and helping to support his widowed mother, Art elected to embark on the ‘fast track’ path to medical school. In 1932, after just two years of an intense pre-med curriculum, he was accepted to KU Medical School at age 18.

After graduating from KU medical school in 1936, “Lud”, as he was affectionately known, interned at Ancker Hospital in St. Paul, MN, and continued on to a year-long surgical residency at The Hertzler Clinic, Halstead, KS. He then practiced general medicine in Waterloo, IA for three years where he met his future wife, Jean Hoyer, a medical technologist at Waterloo’s Presbyterian Hospital. Jean and Lud were married for 67 years at the time of his death in 2008.

Lud served with the 34th Infantry Division (133rd/168th batallions/regimens) on the front lines in North Africa and Italy during WWII and was awarded both the Silver Star for gallantry in action on Mount Pantano, Italy, and the Purple Heart, unusual commendations for an unarmed medical officer.

After the war, in 1945, he and Jean toured the Northwest and decided to settle in Wenatchee, WA, seduced by its wonderful four-season weather and the “Mighty Columbia” River, which flowed through town providing abundant irrigation water for its rich/stable agricultural economy and cheap hydroelectric power.

In 1970, Dr. Ludwick became a charter diplomat of the American Academy of Family Physicians and was awarded the AAFP President’s Award in 1985. He was a member of and served in major leadership positions for the AAFP, Washington Academy of General Practitioners, WA State Medical Association, Chelan County Medical Society, First Presbyterian Church, Rotary International, was a lifelong member of the Masonic Fraternity, and a founding member of the R.O.M.E.O.s (Retired Old Men Eating Out).

In a newspaper interview commemorating his 50+years as a physician, Lud affectionately referred to the practice of medicine as “an old friend.” His medical career spanned an amazing era in our country’s history and practice of medicine – from killer infectious diseases, to the development and routine use of antibiotics, the discovery of DNA, WWII, the development of life-saving vaccines, the advent of Medicare/health insurance, and many major advances in diagnostic procedures/treatments that greatly improved and prolonged patients’ lives.

Art/Lud Ludwick was an avid and lifelong KU “Jayhawk,” donor, and sports fan and a loyal member of Delta Upsilon Fraternity. He was awarded their “Distinguished Alumna Award” posthumously in 2009.

Lud typed hundreds of long, detailed letters throughout his lifetime to patients (redacted to preserve privacy), colleagues, family members, and friends, and made carbon copies of each one. This extraordinary paper trail of his life and medical career document the evolution of the practice of family medicine in our country and are filled with insightful reflections, his personal diagnosis and treatment approaches to every imaginable ailment, comprehensive overviews of his community’s health care scene, how Medicare and other business practices impacted his profession, etc.

These letters, as well as his medical bags, WWII photos, medical school lecture notes and textbooks, and all of his physician father’s archives are catalogued and housed at the AAFP’s Center for the History of Medicine in Leawood, KS.