Rolf Zetterström: Discovered how bilirubin harms the brain in newborns with jaundice.

Abstract

From the time I started school, I heard how brilliant Rolf Zetterström was from my father, who was also a paediatrician. Rolf had applied for a professorship in paediatrics at the Karolinska Hospital Children’s Clinic and was the favourite among the experts. He had among other things discovered how bilirubin harms the brains of newborns with jaundice. But the faculty likely considered him to be too young, which is why he was bypassed by the somewhat older Johnny Lind. As young as 38, Rolf was instead granted professorship at Gothenburg, where he quickly established distinguished research projects with adeptes such as Jan Winberg, Olov Celander and Johan Gentz. Four years later, he was called to the paediatric professorship at the Crown Princess Lovisa—later Saint Göran—Hospital. He had a fantastic ability to recruit research paediatricians, whereof several were from preclinical institutions. Several of them later became professors, such as Ove Broberger, Anita Aperia, Birgitta Strandvik, Ulla Berg, Agne Larsson and Gisela Dahlquist. Rolf was not just an influential researcher with over 400 publications but also a skilful clinician, who quickly could make the correct diagnosis in difficult cases. He was active for many years in the Nobel committee for physiology or medicine and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was known in academic contexts for almost always asking relevant questions, if only after first giving a historical summary, before—in a somewhat crumpled way—reaching the point. For 40 years—between 1965 and 2005—he was editor-in-chief for Acta Paediatrica (Figure 1) and then continued as literature editor almost until his death in 2011. Owing to his encyclopaedic knowledge, he was competent to review articles within almost all paediatric subspecialties, even if he had associate editors to assist. I believe he read most of the articles himself and was very particular with the scientific quality. Manuscripts could be sent back and forth between the editorial office and the authors before they were accepted. Rolf was also recognised and respected internationally. It was therefore a challenge for me to succeed him in 2005, and he was not exactly happy to retire as editor-in-chief at 85 years of age. But we became very good friends. He came almost daily to the editorial office in an old villa between Karolinska Hospital’s main building and the Northern Cemetery. His office was cluttered with books and manuscripts. He continued to write, and engaged himself in all sorts of projects, on topics such as the environmental disasters around the polluted Aral Sea. I could always visit his office and discuss everything from Vitamin D, to BCG vaccination, to social paediatrics. He told me about several Nobel prize winners in physiology or medicine, which he had helped to judge. To a great extent, the conversations also surrounded the incompetence of most hospital directors. I was myself critical, but not nearly to Rolf’s degree. But when I met him in his later days, Rolf was not some hard authoritarian type of boss as the rumours went. He was then relatively humble and warm-hearted, and it was always rewarding to converse with him. The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.