Dr. Bernadine Healy Loop, Who Led National Institutes of Health, American Red Cross and More, Died Saturday at 67

Dr. Bernadine Healy Loop, the first woman to serve as director of the National Institutes of Health and past president of the American Red Cross, died Saturday, Aug. 6, at age 67.

The Gates Mills resident wrote a memoir about her experience with brain cancer titled The Living Time: Faith and Facts to Transform Your Cancer Journey in 2007.

She was named Cleveland Clinic head of research in 1985, NIH director in 1991, The Ohio State University college of medicine dean in 1995, American Heart Association president in 1998 and Red Cross CEO in 1999.

In 1994, she ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, losing in the primary to Mike DeWine.

Healy, who had been a science and technology adviser to President Ronald Reagan, was appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology by President George W. Bush in December 2001.

She chaired the Ohio Commission to Reform Medicaid.

The cardiologist, who received an American Heart Association Award of Distinction in 2004, often addressed health issues in the media. She was health editor at U.S. News & World Report, a CBS News medical consultant and contributor and host of a radio talk show about public policy on WCPN FM.

Her efforts to get Magen David Adom, Israel’s version of the Red Cross, accepted into the international Red Cross organization led to honors from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League’s Cleveland chapter. She and her husband, Dr. Floyd D. Loop, then CEO of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, became the first husband-and-wife team to win the ADL’s Torch of Liberty Award.

Healy, who was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1996, grew up in Long Island City, N.Y., to working-class Irish-Catholic parents.

She graduated from Hunter College High School, Vassar University and Harvard Medical School. She was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine before joining the Cleveland Clinic.

In addition to her husband, survivors include her children, Bartlett Anne Healy Russell and Marie McGrath Loop.

Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 10, at , 34001 Cedar Road, Gates Mills.

Private interment will take place at Tippecanoe Memorial Gardens, West Lafayette, IN.

Donations may be made to the Dr. Bernadine P. Healy Scholarship Fund at The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44106.

Arrangements are by Schulte & Mahon-Murphy Funeral Home.