62nd APS President (1989-1990)
Vernon S. Bishop
(b. 1935)
The sixty-second president of the American Physiological Society is
Vernon S. Bishop, who was installed at the close of the Society's Spring
Meeting in New Orleans.
Bishop, a medical educator and cardiovascular researcher at the
University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, succeeded Aubrey
E. Taylor as president of the nation's oldest biomedical sciences society.
Although a member of the Society for 21 years, Bishop's involvement in
APS affairs was largely contained to activities of the editorial board of
the American Journal of Physiology until 1984 when he was elected
secretary of the Neural Control and Autonomic Section, which in subsequent
years he served as the section's treasurer and chairman of the
Cardiovascular Section. In 1987 Bishop was elected by the membership to the
APS Council and was elected president-elect the following year.
Vernon Spilman Bishop, 53, has never moved far from his roots of Kansas,
Texas, and Mississippi. He was born in McPherson, KS, and grew up in College
Station, TX, and Grenada, MS. Both his baccalaureate and doctorate degrees
are from Mississippi institutions and his Masters degree is from the
University of Kansas. With the exception of brief stints in California, his
career path has led to Texas institutions. As a result he is the first from
a Texas institution to serve as president of the 103-year-old Society.
Bishop received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physics from Mississippi
College in 1958 and was awarded an Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship to
pursue a Master's of Science Degree in radiation biophysics at the
University of Kansas, where he graduated in 1960 and elected to Phi Beta
Kappa. The following year he served as an assistant professor of nuclear
engineering at Texas A&M University.
In 1961 Bishop entered Arthur C. Guyton's graduate program in physiology
and biophysics at the University of Mississippi Medical Sciences Center
where in 1964 he earned a doctorate degree. In graduate program with Bishop
was Aubrey Taylor, who also earned his doctorate that same year.
Upon graduation, Bishop returned to his previous post at Texas A&M for a
year before going to the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University
of California Medical School in San Francisco to continue his training in
cardiovascular physiology as a postdoctoral fellow.
From there he returned to Texas, this time to the biodynamics section of
the School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base where he
investigated the effects of gravity on cardiovascular function.
In 1968 Bishop was appointed associate professor of pharmacology at the
San Antonio Health Sciences Center where he has been active in his research
as well as in medical and graduate education. Among his major appointments
at the center have been the chairmanships of the medical curriculum review
committee, graduate studies committee, medical school faculty assembly, and
the graduate faculty assembly. In 1973 he was promoted to professor.
Bishop's interest in cardiovascular regulation stems from Guyton's
laboratory where, as a student, Bishop was one of the first investigators to
study the cardiovascular system in conscious animals. His work in this field
since that time has led him to a variety of activities with the American
Heart Association and its Texas affiliate and San Antonio chapter.
In addition to his responsibilities as president, Bishop will continue to
serve the American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulatory
Physiology as editor and AJP: Endocrinology & Metabolism as a
member of the editorial board.
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