James C. Tankersley ’57

James C. Tankersley ’57 passed away peacefully on January 18, 2021, after a long battle with cancer. Jim graduated from Central High School in South Bend, Indiana. At Dartmouth he majored in chemistry and participated in the Yacht Club. He attended Dartmouth Medical School, belonged to Alpha Kappa Kappa medical fraternity, and earned his diploma from DMS in 1958 and his M.D. from Harvard University in 1960. Jim specialized in pediatrics, began practicing in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and in due course became chairman of the pediatric department of the Gunderson Clinic. In mid-career, to quote him, “I guess it was the unrecognized gypsy in me that made me do it. I answered a call from a recruiter to set up a neonatal intensive care unit in a remote hospital in the Hijaz Mountains of Saudi Arabia.” Among the Bedouins, he saw firsthand polluted drinking water, sanitation “a sometime thing…housing was crowded and folk medicine was the rule. The infant mortality rate was nearly 50 percent.” Later he went to Dharan, Saudi Arabia, where he worked in a modern hospital in an urban society. He observed that “culturally determined behavior, economic and social development, environmental conditions, and lifestyle” were important: “My experience in Saudi Arabia convinces me that health is so much more than healthcare alone.” Jim returned to the United States to practice as a pediatrician in North Carolina. He is survived by his wife, Francie; sons Christopher, James, and Timothy; daughters Lori and Robyn; and 16 grandchildren.