A tribute to Rosalyn S. Yalow.

Abstract

On May 30, 2011, after a decade and a half of physical and cognitive decline, Rosalyn S. Yalow died, just before her ninetieth birthday. Two days later on a green hillside in New Jersey, a short drive from the Bronx, a dozen intimates gathered to bid farewell. After a round of informal testimonials and traditional recitations, we took turns gently shoveling earth to cover the pine box that protected her remains. The rhythm of the shovels, the camaraderie of the mourners, and the glow of the sun brought forth kaleidoscopic flashbacks — Stockholm, Atlantic City, and the Bronx. Rosalyn Yalow lived nearly all of her life in the Bronx, where she was born, educated and worked, raised her family and met Solomon Berson, her scientific partner for many years (1). Yalow and Berson were born in New York, children and grandchildren of immigrants from Europe (1–3). For both families finances were constrained due to shortage of capital, anti-Semitic impediments to employment, and the Great Depression. Both Berson and Yalow were educated in New York City public schools. Berson graduated from the legendary City College of New York, then all-male and tuition-free. After graduation, it took him three years (earning a master’s degree and working as an assistant in the New York University Anatomy Department) before he broke through the extreme barriers then in place for Jewish applicants to medical school. Berson bragged about his hundred or more medical school rejections. A classmate of Berson at New York University School of Medicine recalled that on Day One it was obvious to all that Berson would be the leading student in their class. Yalow was a top student at Hunter College, the tuition-free, all-female counterpart of City College, where she majored in physics. Despite a brilliant record, she failed to gain admission to any graduate programs in physics, specifically and openly because she was female and Jewish. Finally, as a favor to one of her Hunter College professors, the University of Illinois accepted her into their PhD program in nuclear physics with the condition that they bear no responsibility for placing her in a job after graduation. Indeed, despite a brilliant school record and the World War II shortage of civilian males, employment for her was spotty. It was two years before she joined the Veterans Administration Hospital (“Bronx VA”) as a consultant and five years until she was hired as a full-time physicist (1, 2). Through talent, hard work, and good luck, in 1950 Ros became the fledgling head of the nascent radioisotope unit at the Bronx VA. Novel applications of radioisotopes to medicine were burgeoning. She developed a solid program of service, teaching, and research but recognized that to reach its full potential the unit needed a physician. After the rejection of many candidates, Bernard Straus, the highly regarded chief of the medical service, introduced Ros to the smartest MD he had ever trained. After an hour, Ros was certain that Sol Berson was the smartest MD she had ever met (1).