Fred Rosner (October 3, 1935 – July 2024) was an American professor of medicine at

Mount Sinai School of Medicine The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City, New York, United States. The school is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sina ...

(archived from the original) and the director of the Department of Medicine at

Queens Hospital Center Queens Hospital Center (QHC), also known as NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens and originally called Queens General Hospital, is a large public hospital campus in the Jamaica Hills, Queens, Jamaica Hills and Hillcrest, Queens, Hillcrest neighborhoo ...

. He was also the chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee of the

State of New York New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

. He was, moreover, an expert on

Jewish medical ethics Jewish medical ethics is a modern scholarly and clinical approach to medical ethics that draws upon Jewish thought and teachings. Pioneered by Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits in the 1950s, Jewish medical ethics centers mainly around an applied ethics dr ...

and on the medical writings of

Moses Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle A ...

Life and career

Rosner was born in Berlin, Germany, where, at the age of three, he and his brother were on the last of the

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children from Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, total ...

boats to the United Kingdom. After the end of the Second World War, Rosner immigrated to the United States and was an undergraduate at

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a Private university, private Modern Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City.

. He qualified as an MD at the

Albert Einstein College of Medicine The Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a Private university, private medical school in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein is an independent degree-granting institution within the Montefiore Einstein Health System. Einstein hosts Doc ...

, with the first graduating class in 1959. He was a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine and was board certified in his specialty of

hematology Hematology (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to bloo ...

. Among his many awards are the American Medical Association's Isaac Hays, MD, and John Bell, MD, Award for Leadership in Ethics and Professionalism; the Bernard Revel Memorial Award from the Yeshiva College Alumni Association for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts & Sciences; and the Lawrence D. Redway Award for Excellence in Medical Writing from the Medical Society of New York. Rosner published eight books on Jewish medical ethics, including ''Modern Medicine and Jewish Ethics'' (Ktav, 1991); ''Medicine and Jewish Law I, II and III'' (Jason Aronson, 1990 and 1993); ''Pioneers in Jewish Medical Ethics'' (Jason Aronson, 1997); and ''Biomedical Ethics and Jewish Law'' (Ktav, 2001). He also translated Avraham Steinberg's seven-volume ''Encyclopedia Hilchatit Refuit'' from Hebrew into English as the ''Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics''. His other books include: an English translation of Julius Preuss's classic reference work ''Biblical and Talmudic Medicine'' (reprinted in 1993) and the ''Encyclopedia of Medicine in the Bible and the Talmud'' (Jason Aronson, 2000). He is also the translator and editor of ''Moses Maimonides' Medical Writings'' (seven volumes published by the Maimonides Research Institute, Haifa), ''A Medical Encyclopedia of Moses Maimonides'' (Jason Aronson, 1998), and ''The Medical Legacy of Moses Maimonides'' (Ktav, 1998). Dr. Rosner was recognized as an authority on this giant of Jewish thought and medieval medicine. He also published almost 800 articles and thirty-nine chapters in books on all aspects of

and Jewish medical history, and on many other topics, including

haematology Hematology ( spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the production ...

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

anaemia Anemia (also spelt anaemia in British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen. This can be due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin availab ...

immunology Immunology is a branch of biology and medicine that covers the study of Immune system, immune systems in all Organism, organisms. Immunology charts, measures, and contextualizes the Physiology, physiological functioning of the immune system in ...

, and general medicine. Rosner was an internationally known authority on medical ethics, having lectured widely on Jewish medical ethics throughout USA, and served as visiting professor or lecturer in Israel, England, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. He died in July 2024, at the age of 88.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosner, Fred 1935 births 2024 deaths American hematologists American bioethicists German emigrants to the United States Yeshiva University faculty Jewish medical ethics Jewish American scientists New York University faculty Albert Einstein College of Medicine alumni German Orthodox Jews American Orthodox Jews Kindertransport refugees