Nils P. Larsen, MD

This web exhibit is based on an exhibit on display in the front lobby of the Queen's Medical Center, near the Physicians' Lounge. That exhibit will be on display from March 2000 to May 2000. For more information on Nils P. Larsen, MD, see his biography from In Memoriam - Doctors of Hawaii.

Note: Click on selected images to access larger images.

A 1916 graduate of Cornell University Medical College, Dr. Larsen was appointed pathologist at Queen's Hospital in 1922. Very shortly thereafter he became Medical Director in addition to his duties as pathologist. For 20 years Dr. Larsen served the hospital in these dual roles. During that time he established an occupational therapy service, organized a research department, helped develop a training school for nurses and instituted a lively and weekly clinic, which, while it left many a doctor licking his wounds, was always well attended. For many years he served on the hospital Nursing Advisory Committee, and on the Medical Advisory Committee and edited The Queen's Hospital Bulletin.

Queen's Hospital Bulletin
July 1924

Queen's Hospital Bulletin
March 1925

Pageant: Birth and Growth of Surgery in the Pacific

In 1927 the doctor became president of the Honolulu County Medical Society, a post he held a second time in 1945. In 1929 he was chairman of the first Pan-Pacific Surgical Congress as well as a medical consultant to Tripler General Hospital. Always interested in birth control, Dr. Larsen was a member and post president of the Planned Parenthood Association and in 1955 was a United States delegate to the International Conference of the Planned Parenthood Association in Tokyo.

A man of many talents, the doctor found time to sketch and print in oils, but he is best known for his etchings and his color photographs, which were exhibited often on the Mainland. He was an authority on Ancient Hawaiian medical practices. Using this knowledge, in 1954 he wrote and directed a pageant, "Birth and Growth of Surgery in the Pacific," put on at the dedication of the Kamehameha IV Wing, the new surgical wing at Queen's Hospital.

Dr. Larsen led the fight to improve Hawaii's milk supply, which resulted in a precipitous drop in the infant mortality. Serving for a dollar a year, He lectured on social hygiene at McKinley High School for many years. In 1930 he became medical advisor to the Hawaii Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) and developed a medical and health education program which gave Hawaii's plantations the lowest incidence of disease and mortality among American industries. During the year he joined the staff of the HSPA, he founded Plantation Health. Dr. Larsen remained its editor until his death in 1964.

Dr. Marvin A. Brennecke writing of Dr. Larsen in the April, 1964, issue of Plantation Health said,

You can see him--and this he did--sitting in the waiting room (of the Medical Group office in Waialae-Kahala), two hours before his death, holding an oxygen mask over his face and reading a current lay magazine. He was waiting to receive the report on his EKG that a colleague had just taken. He had just finished writing a note to Dr. Paul White of Boston describing his symptoms, believing that this may be of value in the study of heart disease in the future. He was endowed with a great mind. Hawaii was blessed when he gave it to her. Paul is not gone.

He will be with us and he will walk among us for a long time to come.

First Posted: March 17, 2000