Dr. Gottlieb C. Friesinger earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1955 where he also did his postgraduate training, including a year as the Osler Chief Resident. In 1957, he was the first to successfully use the Kouwenhoven defibrillator. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He served as regimental surgeon for the 5th Marines, and then remained at Johns Hopkins until coming to Vanderbilt in 1971. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1974. In 1971, Dr. Friesinger arrived at Vanderbilt and founded what is now the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. He served as Chief until 1990 and remained on the faculty in an active role until 2002. Later in his career he became interested in the effect of aging of the heart. His research focused on the studies of coronary arteriography, the hemodynamics of myocardial infarction and the development of nuclear medicine techniques to assess ventricular function. Dr. Friesinger held endowed chairs at both Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt and was active in Cardiovascular Research as well as patient care and teaching. He received many awards and was a consultant to a number of national organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the Rand Corporation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where he helped develop programs to foster minority faculty in academic medicine. He was a master in both the American College of Physicians and the American College of Cardiology, and a Distinguished Fellow of the ACC. He was on the editorial board of The Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation. Dr. Friesinger served on the Board of Trustees at Johns Hopkins University for 21 years, where he was a Presidential Counselor. He was a visiting professor and lecturer at many academic medical centers in the United States and Western Europe. He created and offered several courses at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt. At the time of his passing in 2012, he was working on a book describing the long-term connections between Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt.