Ernie Kuester Cotton

Ernest Kuester Cotton MD. passed away peacefully on February 6, 2025 at the age of 97. Dr. Cotton, Ernie to his friends and colleagues, began his academic medical career at the University of Colorado Medical School in 1958 where he taught, researched, and practiced medicine until retiring in 1988 as Professor Emeritus Pulmonology. He played a key role in founding the discipline of pediatric pulmonology and made important, original contributions in pulmonary hypertension, control of breathing, and pediatric critical care. He inspired generations of medical doctors with his knowledge, experience and charismatic lectures, many times beginning lectures with either a joke or a photo of a recent powder skiing adventure.

Ernie Cotton was born on August 9, 1927 to George Kuester Cotton M.D. and Frances Esther Weigel in Denver Colorado. His father George, a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon at the University of Colorado, suffered an untimely death from pneumonia at the age of 35 on April 26, 1937 when Ernie was 9. Ernie grew up in Denver, attended East High School (class of 1945) and served in the Navy from June 1945 to August 1946 during the end of World War II. He then attended the University of Colorado in Boulder from 1946 to 1949, the University of Denver from 1949 to 1950 and the University of Colorado Medical School, graduating in 1954 with honors. He completed his residency from 1955 to 1958 at Cleveland City Hospital, becoming chief resident in pediatrics and contagious diseases in his last year and worked under Dr. Frederick C. Robbins MD who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1954 for his work that led to the development of the Polio vaccine.

After his residency he was brought to the University of Colorado Medical School by the Department of Pediatrics Chair C. Henry Kempe MD. He founded the Pediatric Pulmonary program in the early 1960s and led the pediatric out-patient clinic at the University of Colorado Medical School. During his time with the University of Colorado, he served as a special National Institutes of Health Fellow at the University of California San Francisco’s Cardiovascular Research Institute (UCHSC) from 1961 to 1963 with William Tooley, MD, and John Clements, MD, which at the time was one of only five pediatric pulmonary programs in the country. During his tenure at UCHSC he also began its pediatric intensive care program. Ernie’s innovative approach to pediatric pulmonary research, education, care, and advocacy was the catalyst for today’s Section of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine at Children’s Hospital Colorado. He continued research with Tooley and Clements in Singapore from June to September 1964. He started his teaching career as an assistant instructor in pediatrics in 1958. He became an instructor in pediatrics in 1960, an assistant professor in 1963, associate professor in 1966 and a full professor in 1973. Over the period from September 1977 to November of 1978 he conducted high altitude pulmonary studies on newborns in Leadville Colorado, elevation 10,119 ft. Later, with a Maternal Child Health Grant, he launched a five-state outreach and training program.

Gatherings of University of Colorado faculty and guest speakers for winter retreats began in the early 1970s to review important trends in pediatric pulmonary medicine….and ski. The gatherings led to the formal establishment of the “Cotton Club” in his honor in 1990. The Cotton Club was cited as one of the top Innovations in Fellowship Education by the American Thoracic Society in 2014.

Ernie was appointed director of the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic in September 1964 then worked closely with Frank Accurso, MD, when he was a fellow at the University of Colorado in 1980, and Margo Pinney RN. At this time the live expectancy for children with CF was 18. They initiated the nation’s first statewide newborn screening program for cystic fibrosis in 1982. Many patients with CF can now expect to live into the mid-40s and beyond due to the testing and medications developed. In 1990 the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation honored Ernie for his contributions.

Ernie was a pediatric consultant to the American College of Chest Physicians, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Maternal-Child Health Department, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. In 1999, he received the Department of Pediatrics Career Teaching Award. He was inducted into the Colorado Pulmonary Hall of fame in 2002.

He married Margo Ann Pinney in 1984 and in 1988 and they retired to Durango, Colorado where they built a home at Lake Durango, enjoyed skiing at Purgatory, hiking, cycling and snowshoeing - Ernie being active into his early 90s. He was president of the San Juan Basin Archaeological Society from 1994 to 1996 and was co-investigator with John Sanders and Reid Ross on a project to determine the location of the artifacts taken from the Falls Creek Rock Shelters.

He was preceded in death by his mother Frances (December 9, 1992), brother Ralph Lockwood Cotton MD (January 26, 2018) and sister Frances Marie Wollenweber (June 21, 2018). He is survived by Margo, his six children from his first marriage to Joan Elizabeth Nadeau and their spouses; George K. Cotton (Julie), Melanie Cotton (Richard Lichtenstein), Gerald (Gerry) D. Cotton (Cecelia); Theodore (Ted) R. Cotton (Stephanie), Ernest (Buz) N. Cotton (Quincee) and Frances C. (Francie) Chase (Dick); twelve grandchildren; Josephine and Georgianne (George), Daniel and Jessica (Melanie), Angela and Gabriella (Gerry), Charlie and Emma (Ted), Sadie and Sumner (Buz), Samantha and Halle (Francie); and five great grandchildren. 

Ernie’s daughters were accomplished ballerinas with the Denver Civic Ballet starring in the annual Nutcracker at the Denver Auditorium annually. Ernie climbed 45 of Colorado’s 14,000 ft peaks and 17,802 ft high Popocatepetl in Mexico. His sons have fond memories of backpacking, camping and mountain climbing with Ernie in Colorado’s mountains in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s using topographic maps and the one guidebook available at the time – becoming lost and being hungry common themes.