Hershel M. Jick (December 1, 1931 – October 16, 2023) was an American medical researcher and associate professor of medicine at

Boston University School of Medicine The Boston University School of Medicine (formally the Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine) is the medical school of Boston University, a private university, private research university in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in ...

, where he was the director of the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program.

Education

Jick graduated from

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

in 1956 and completed an internal medicine residency and clinical pharmacology fellowship.

Career

Jick is known for researching the negative and positive effects of pharmaceutical drugs. A 1977 study by him and his assistant Jane Porter reported that no more than one patient per 3,600 died because of incorrect drug prescriptions. In 1980, Jick and Porter published the letter "

Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics "Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics" is the title of a letter to the editor written by Jane Porter and Hershel Jick and published in the January 10, 1980, issue of ''The New England Journal of Medicine''. The letter analyzed data ...

", which has been cited to argue that

opioid Opioids are a class of Drug, drugs that derive from, or mimic, natural substances found in the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy plant. Opioids work on opioid receptors in the brain and other organs to produce a variety of morphine-like effects, ...

s are rarely addictive. Jick has said that this study had multiple limitations, such as that it only pertained to patients in the hospital, and did not assess the risk of addiction when opioids were prescribed in outpatient settings. The "Porter–Jick study" was mentioned in the

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

miniseries ''Dopesick'' and Jick was portrayed by theatre actor

Mark Jacoby Mark Jacoby (born May 21, 1947) is an American musical theatre performer who has had leading roles on Broadway in ''Show Boat'', ''The Phantom of the Opera'', ''Sweet Charity'' and ''Ragtime'', among others. He has also performed widely in nat ...

. Outside of medicine, Jick was the author of the book ''A Listener's Guide to Mozart's Music''.

Death

Jick died on October 16, 2023, at the age of 91.

References

External links

Faculty profile
1931 births 2023 deaths Boston University School of Medicine faculty Physicians from Massachusetts Harvard Medical School alumni {{US-physician-stub