Conrad-Nestor Scholarship Fund

Two old fashioned country doctors – with more than 75 years on staff at South County Hospital (SCH) between them – are honored through this scholarship fund for family members of Hospital employees. The fund, a tribute to Dr. Robert Conrad and the late Dr. Thomas Nestor, was established at the Hospital in 1999 by Dr. David Chronley, a South County pediatrician who was mentored by each of the Fund’s namesakes; it was transferred to the Foundation in 2008 with significant additional funding from Dr. Conrad.

Dr. Conrad, a member of the Hospital medical staff for 35 years, served as both chief of surgery and chief of staff prior to his retirement in 2000. “He was relentless in improving the hospital,” according to Rick Moffitt, PA, who worked with Dr. Conrad for 18 years. Among his achievements at the Hospital are the first FAA-approved hospital-based helipad in the state, the first hospital rescue radio system in the state, and South County Hospital’s first ICU. A graduate of Moses Brown and Brown University, he earned his master’s and medical degrees from Boston University. “It was a great career. You’d get paid in lobsters or clams. We didn’t turn anyone down…The most important thing in practicing medicine is what’s best for the patient.”

Dr. Nestor, “a linchpin of the South County medical community for more than four decades” according to his September 1992 Providence Journal obituary, served on the SCH staff from 1946 until his retirement four decades later. It further notes, “Dr. Nestor, a surgeon and family doctor, was widely admired for his skill in the operating room, for his formidable schedule that included making house calls until he retired in late 1986, and for his compassion in calming the anxieties of the people he treated.”

A graduate of Providence College and the University of Maryland Medical School, he served in the Army’s 511th Parachute Infantry during World War II, earning the Silver and Bronze Stars for his service.

Although two dedicated physicians no longer are at South County Hospital, their names – and their service to others – will continue through this permanent endowment for college scholarships.

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