From the “Father of Pediatrics” to the first woman appointed to the medical staff at The Mount Sinai Hospital—also a first in the United States—physicians educated and practicing at Mount Sinai have revolutionized science and medicine. This Doctors’ Day, we proudly recognize a few of these “Giants of Mount Sinai” and celebrate the many doctors of today who continue this legacy of excellence at Mount Sinai and beyond.
Arthur H. Aufses Jr., MD
A transformational leader who served as Chair of the Ruth J. and Maxwell Hauser & Harriet and Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Department of Surgery for 22 years before retiring in 1996, Dr. Aufses ushered in Mount Sinai’s adoption of laparoscopic surgery and oversaw the expansion of ambulatory surgery and the hospital’s transplant program. In 1988, he organized the surgical team that performed the first liver transplant in New York State.
Within Mount Sinai, Dr. Aufses mentored many residents and fellows and helped to break down barriers for women and minority surgeons. Over the years, he received numerous teaching awards and other institutional honors, including the Jacobi Medallion, and the Alexander Richman Award for Humanism in Medicine.
On 17 occasions, medical students selected Dr. Aufses to administer the Oath of Maimonides or the Oath of Hippocrates at commencement, and on three occasions, he was chosen to serve as Commencement Grand Marshal. In addition to his published medical research papers and book chapters, Dr. Aufses was a chronicler of Mount Sinai’s long and storied history, and co-authored two books on the subject, starting with The Mount Sinai Hospital’s founding.
Before his passing in April 2019, Dr. Aufses and his wife of 71 years, Harriet, made numerous philanthropic gifts to the Mount Sinai Health System—and as part of her own estate planning, Mrs. Aufses established an endowed scholarship for military veterans.
George Baehr, MD
Dr. George Baehr made significant research contributions in the areas of collagen disease, hematology, and the adrenal complications of heart disease. He was also a pioneer in public health, organizing the first group health plan in New York, and in 1947 he established the Health Insurance Plan of New York (HIP) at the request of his friend and patient, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. In 1945, the Surgeon General appointed him to the first NIH Scientific Advisory Board.
Baehr served in both world wars. In World War I he was the Commander of Base Hospital No.3, the Mount Sinai-based hospital unit that was established in France. During their few months of active service abroad, the unit admitted more than 9,000 patients, including more than 1,000 a day at times. During World War II, Dr. Baehr was the Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Office of Civil Defense.
Abraham Jacobi, MD
Dr. Abraham Jacobi was born in Germany in 1830. While a student, he participated in the revolutionary events of 1848. He received a medical degree from the University at Bonn in 1851, the same year he was charged with treason and imprisoned. He escaped in 1853 and fled to the United States, where he became known as the “Father of Pediatrics.”
Dr. Jacobi was the first professor of pediatrics in the United States, having been appointed to the post at New York Medical College in 1860. He and his wife, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi [LINK to MPJ post], established the first free pediatric clinic in the US and developed a method of bedside clinical teaching, a landmark in medical education. Until then, physicians did not conduct teaching rounds on medical wards. In the same year, he also joined the staff of The Jews’ Hospital in New York, known after 1866 as The Mount Sinai Hospital. Here he established the first pediatric department in a general hospital in New York City.
In 1952, Dr. William M. Hitzig, then President of the Mount Sinai Alumni Association, conceived the idea of commemorating the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Mount Sinai Hospital with an annual ceremony, and the prestigious Jacobi Medallion was born. A man of broad interests, humanistic philosophy, investigative acumen, and clinical skill, he stands as a model not only for Mount Sinai, but for the entire medical profession.
Josephine Walter, MD
Dr. Josephine Walter was educated in a private school conducted by Madame Mears in New York City. Upon graduating, with the active encouragement of her family physician, the celebrated Dr. Willard Parker, and Dr. Abraham Jacobi, she determined upon the study of medicine. Dr. Walter matriculated at the College of the New York Infirmary for Women, and while a student there, obtained special permission to attend the lectures of Professor Ogden N. Rood, professor of physics at Columbia College, becoming the first woman student ever to attend Columbia. Upon graduation from medical school, Dr. Walter competed for and won a position on the house staff at The Mount Sinai Hospital, being the first woman so appointed in the United States.
Jean Pakter, MD
Dr. Jean Pakter was born on Jan. 1, 1911, in Manhattan, the youngest of four children of David and Lillian Pakter. Her father worked as a tailor. She was one of only four women accepted to the class of 1934 at the New York University Medical School at Bellevue Hospital, then known as University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College.
Dr. Pakter spent five years at The Mount Sinai Hospital, finishing her residency in 1939. An advocate for maternal and child health, she devoted her life to serving not only the City of New York, as Director of the Department of Health’s Bureau of Maternity Services and Family Planning from 1960 to 1982, but to the nation as well.
As head of the Bureau of Maternity Services and Family Planning in the 1960’s, Dr. Pakter was recognized for her landmark research on women’s reproductive health which influenced several defining political events of her time, including the War on Poverty in the 1960s and the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.
Jonas Salk, MD
Born on October 28, 1914, Dr. Jonas Salk grew up in New York City and attended the City College of New York, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in science. He earned his MD from New York University in 1939. Dr. Salk interned at The Mount Sinai Hospital for two years and then earned a research fellowship to University of Michigan to develop an influenza vaccine with Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr.
In 1947, Dr. Salk was appointed director of the virus research laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. With funding from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis—now known as the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation—he began to develop the techniques that would lead to a vaccine to wipe out the most frightening scourge of the time: paralytic poliomyelitis.
Contrary to the era’s prevailing scientific opinion, Dr. Salk believed his vaccine, composed of “killed” polio virus, could immunize without risk of infecting the patient. In 1954, national testing began and on April 12, 1955, the results were announced that the vaccine was safe and effective. In the two years before the vaccine was widely available, the average number of polio cases in the U. was more than 45,000. By 1962, that number had dropped to 910. Hailed as a miracle worker, Dr. Salk never patented the vaccine or earned any money from his discovery, preferring it be distributed as widely as possible.