David Jay Rothman (April 30, 1937 − August 31, 2020) was professor of Social Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He also served as the president of the

Institute on Medicine as a Profession Founded in 2003, the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) is an American non-profit health care policy think tank housed at Columbia University in New York City. Its primary area of focus is the concept of medical professionalism. Other ar ...

(IMAP). Rothman's work focused on the social history of American medicine and current

health care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...

practices. His research also explored

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

in medicine, including

organ trafficking Organ trade (also known as Red market) is the trading of human organs, tissues, or other body products, usually for transplantation.(Carney, Scott. 2011. "The Red Market." Wired 19, no. 2: 112–1. Internet and Personal Computing Abstracts.) Accor ...

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

, and the

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

of research in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

. Rothman lived in New York City with his wife and frequent co-author, Professor Sheila M. Rothman. He had two children. His daughter, Micol Rothman, is an endocrinologist in Denver, working with gender transitioning individuals. His son, Matthew Rothman, is on faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Finance, a managing director at Goldman Sachs and renowned quantitative researcher.

Education

Rothman earned his B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1958 and a Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1964.

Career

After earning his Ph.D., Rothman returning to Columbia and rose to the rank of Professor of History by 1971. In 1971 Rothman published ''The Discovery of the Asylum'', which explores

mental hospitals Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociati ...

prisons A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...

, and

almshouses An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...

. The book was co-winner of the

Albert J. Beveridge Award The Albert J. Beveridge Award is awarded by the American Historical Association (AHA) for the best English-language book on American history (United States, Canada, or Latin America) from 1492 to the present. It was established on a biennial basis ...

of the American Historical Association. According to a 2019 review, the book "effectively launched the contemporary field of prison history. Rothman traced the first modern prisons' (1820s–1850s) roots to the post-Revolution social turmoil and reformers' desire for perfectly ordered spaces." In 2000 Rothman published ''Medical Professionalism; Focusing on the Real Issues''. With an endowment from the

Open Society Institute Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...

and George Soros, Rothman founded the

(IMAP) in 2003. IMAP is dedicated to medical professionalism. He and

Sheila Rothman Sheila (alternatively spelled Shelagh and Sheelagh) is a common feminine given name, derived from the Irish name ''Síle'', which is believed to be a Gaelic form of the Latin name Caelia, the feminine form of the Roman clan name Caelius, meanin ...

co-authored ''Marketing HPV Vaccine'', which was published in 2009. Also in 2009, ''Professional Medical Associations and Their Relationships with Industry: A Proposal for Controlling Conflicts of Interest'' was published. He also co-authored ''From Disclosure to Transparency: The Use of Company Payment Data'', published in 2010. ''Medical Communication Companies and Industry Grants'' was published in 2013 and ''Political Polarization of Physicians in the United States: An Analysis of Campaign Contributions to Federal Elections, 1991 Through 2012'' in 2014.

Task forces

Rothman co-chaired two task forces. The recommendations of these task forces were published in 2006 in the

Journal of the American Medical Association ''The Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of bio ...

under the title ''Health Industry Practices that Create Conflicts of Interest: A Policy Proposal for Academic Medical Centers''. Together with the Open Society Foundations, Rothman convened a task force to address physician involvement in detention,

interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...

, and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

. A resulting report entitled ''Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror'' was published in November 2013.

"The Shame of Medical Research"

In an article titled "The Shame of Medical Research" that was published in November 2000, Rothman wrote:

Publications

*''Politics and Power: The United States Senate, 1869-1901'' (1966) *''The Discovery of the Asylum'' (1971) *''Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and Its Alternatives in Progressive America'' (1980) *''The Willowbrook Wars'' (1984, co-authored with

) *''Strangers at the Bedside: A History of How Law and Bioethics Transformed Medical Decision-making'' (1991) *''Medicine and Western Civilization'' (1995, co-edited with

Steven Marcus Steven Paul Marcus (December 13, 1928 – April 25, 2018) was an American academic and literary critic who published influential psychoanalytic analyses of the novels of Charles Dickens and Victorian pornography. He was George Delacorte Professo ...

and

Stephanie Kiceluk Stephanie is a female name that comes from the Greek name Στέφανος (Stephanos) meaning "crown". The male form is Stephen. Forms of Stephanie in other languages include the German "Stefanie", the Italian, Czech, Polish, and Russian "Stef ...

) *''Beginnings Count: The Technological Imperative in American Health Care'' (1997) *''The Pursuit of Perfection: The Promise and Perils of Medical Enhancement'' (2003, co-authored with Sheila Rothman) *''Trust Is Not Enough'' (2006, co-authored with Sheila Rothman) *''Medical Professionalism in the New Information Age'' (2010, co-edited with

David Blumenthal David Blumenthal (born August 31, 1948) is an academic physician and health care policy expert, known as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology from 2009 to 2011 during the early implementation of the Health Information Tec ...

)

References

External links

Columbia University Faculty Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rothman, David Columbia University faculty 2020 deaths 1937 births American medical historians Columbia College (New York) alumni Harvard University alumni