The information below is modified from a post that appeared in
The Berkshire Eagle.
James Cyril Drennan, MD, lived a full and adventurous life. He passed away on June 7 at home in Albuquerque, NM, with his three children by his side.
Dr. Drennan was born June 22, 1935, in Pittsfield, MA. He graduated from Cornell University with a BA in English Literature in 1957 and then continued his studies at Cornell University Medical College in NY, graduating in 1961. Dr. Drennan completed his surgical internship and residency at University Hospitals in Cleveland, OH. This is where he met his future wife, Julie Jordan, who was a nurse. They were married on February 2, 1963, in Cleveland and enjoyed a devoted marriage of 57 years filled with many adventures.
Dr. Drennan entered the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1963 and served as a captain and assistant post surgeon at the Kagnew Communication Base in Asmara, Ethiopia. He served in Ethiopia until 1966 when he returned to Cleveland and completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at University Hospitals. His medical career took him to Sheffield, England, where he served as a National Institutes of Health Special Research Fellow.
Dr. Drennan's initial academic position was at the University of Colorado in Denver from 1971 to 1974. Then he moved to Newington Children's Hospital in Connecticut, where he was the Director of Orthopaedics until 1987. At that time, he and his family moved to Albuquerque where he took on the role of Medical Director and Chief Executive Officer of Carrie Tingly Children's Hospital at the University of New Mexico. In 2001, Dr. Drennan retired from the UNM, but he continued to see patients in the Lovelace Health System for an additional 5 years.
He was a member of many national and international orthopedic academic societies, including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, and the New Mexico Orthopedic Association. He served as both an oral (1975-2000) and written (1987-2000) examiner for the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery. He also gave instructional course lectures for 22 consecutive years at the American Academy of Orthopaedics Annual Meeting.
A prolific academic writer, Dr. Drennan authored hundreds of national and international publications. He wrote four major pediatric orthopaedic textbooks, including
Drennan's The Child's Foot and Ankle, which was first published in 2010.
In addition to his devotion to pediatric orthopaedics and his thousands of patients and their families around the globe, Dr. Drennan loved to travel the world. He and Julie visited 87 countries together. Julie was a nurse for the early Peace Corps groups in Ethiopia and they made lifelong friends with Peace Corps Volunteers.
Dr. Drennan is survived by his three children: Megan Drennan Meline of Bethesda, MD (Jed); Jocelyn Drennan of Albuquerque, NM; and Daniel Drennan of Tacoma, WA (Juniper); as well as his three grandsons.
This fall, the family will hold a private funeral service and then a celebration of his and Julie's lives with friends and family. Julie passed away in January 2020, just before the pandemic. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to one of his favorite local charities, Roadrunner Foodbank (
www.rrfb.org).
