Dr. John Brown Thomison was born April 17, 1921 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He received both his B.A. in chemistry in 1942, and his M.D. in 1944 from Vanderbilt. He served his internship at Ohio State University Hospital from 1944 to 1945, and was in the Army Air Corps from 1945 to 1947. He had a surgical residency at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga from 1947 to 1949, followed by a residency at Vanderbilt in Pathology from 1949 until 1952. Following his post graduate training, he remained at Vanderbilt and served on the faculty in the Department of Pathology rising from the rank of instructor to associate professor. In 1966, he entered private practice in Nashville as a pathologist at Park View Medical Center. He remained a member of the clinical faculty until 1999 when he was elevated to emeritus status. He has been very active in his profession serving as editor of the Southern Medical Journal and the Journal of the Tennessee Medical Association. He served as president of the Tennessee Medical Association in 1988. He died in Nashville on Aprl 21, 2013.