Posted on: Friday, October 12, 2001
William Goodhue Sr., Kaua'i doctor, dead at 88
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua‘i Bureau
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Dr. William W. Goodhue Sr., a veteran physician whose father was a Hansen's disease specialist at Kalaupapa and in China, died Sunday on Kaua'i, where he had lived for more than 50 years. He was 88.
Goodhue was born in the Kalaupapa Settlement on Moloka'i, where his father, William Joseph Arthur, was a physician who worked with leprosy patients. His great-grandfather, Rudolph Meyer, was a former superintendent of the settlement in the 1860s.
His mother, Christina Meyer Goodhue, was a descendant of Moloka'i chiefess Kalama Waha.
One of the last doctors of the old plantation medical system, Goodhue was known for his excellent memory for names and his ability to use words from the native languages of his patients.
Goodhue attended Punahou and studied at St. John's University in Shanghai and St. Louis University School of Medicine.
He served as a lieutenant in the Navy Medical Corps in the Pacific and in 1947 moved to Kaua'i, where he was assistant medical director at Mahelona Hospital, then medical director at Mc-
Bryde Sugar Co., and later a partner in the Garden Island Medical Group.
Dr. Peter Kim, who arrived on Kaua'i three years after Goodhue, said there were just 12 physicians on the island then. Goodhue, a general practitioner, did everything from delivering children to industrial medicine and surgery, he said.
Goodhue delivered more than 4,000 children in his career, and had as patients the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of his earliest deliveries.
"He had a long and an important presence on this island," said colleague Dr. Roger Netzer.
Goodhue served during his career as a member of the Hawai'i Board of Medical Examiners, president of the Kaua'i County Medical Society, and a director of the Kaua'i chapter of the American Red Cross. He retired in 1978.
He is survived by his son, Dr. William W. Goodhue Jr., Honolulu's first deputy medical examiner. Services were held yesterday, with burial at the family plot at Kala'e, Moloka'i.
