Remembering Dr. Harold Nitowsky
Dr. Harold Nitowsky, clinical professor emeritus of obstetrics & gynecology and women’s health (OB/GYN) and of pediatrics, as well as professor emeritus of genetics, died on November 12, 2016. He was 91.
Harold Nitowsky, M.D.Born on February 12, 1925, in New York, Dr. Nitowsky attended the College of the City of New York and New York University (NYU), completing his undergraduate studies in 1944. After earning his medical degree from NYU College of Medicine in 1947, he completed his internship at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York, and his residency in pediatrics at the University of Colorado Medical Center. He then completed a U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) postdoctoral fellowship in the departments of biophysics and pediatrics while also earning a master’s degree in biophysics at University of Colorado. From 1951 to 1953, he served in the military as an S.S. Surgeon at the USPHS Communicable Disease Center.
Dr. Nitowsky arrived in the Bronx in 1967, from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he had trained under the “father of medical genetics” Dr. Victor McKusick. At Einstein, he founded the Genetic Counseling Program, which included a mobile unit dubbed “Operation Gene Screen.” He and staff visited colleges, synagogues and community centers all over New York State performing carrier screening for Tay-Sachs disease, a rare but fatal metabolic disorder that affects youngsters born to two healthy parents who often were unwittingly carriers of the Tay-Sachs gene. While Tay-Sachs can affect children from all backgrounds, it is known as a Jewish genetic disorder since those of Ashkenazi Jewish descent are more likely to be affected than other ethnic groups. Screening proved vital to identifying would-be carriers and saving lives.
Dr. Nitowsky (far right) with members of Operation Gene Screen, posing by their mobile gene-screening unitAt Einstein, Dr. Nitowsky served in a variety of leadership roles, including director of the clinical research unit and assistant director for clinical research at the Rose F. Kennedy Center, director of the Genetic Counseling Program, program director of the Genetics Research Center and director of both the division of genetics in the department of pediatrics and division of reproductive genetics in OB/GYN.
During his career, he trained numerous medical geneticists, many of whom went on to be leaders in the field as well. “His vast knowledge base and ability to keep up with the literature aided him in teaching the entire second-year human genetics course at Sarah Lawrence College by himself?a course that is now taught by dozens of people,” recalled Dr. Robert Marion, an Einstein alumnus who was a medical student, resident and later colleague of Dr. Nitowsky, and followed him as director of the division of genetic medicine in the department of pediatrics.
He touched the lives of thousands of patients, families, fellows, residents, medical students, genetic counselors and others. He will be remembered warmly by those individuals as well as for his many contributions to the field.
Posted on: Monday, November 21, 2016