Charles D Gerson, MD - May 21, 2017

[Jeffrey Roberts]

Dr. Gerson was a great friend to myself and the IBS community. He and his wife, Mary-Joan Gerson Ph.D. started the Mind-Body Digestive Disease Center in NYC for managing patients with IBS.

Charles Gerson, MD died peacefully at home on May 21, 2017 after struggling with illness. He was 80 years old. Raised in Washington Heights, Charles loved playing sports, especially golf, while attending Bronx High School of Science and then at Cornell University. His choice of medicine as a career was a natural result of his interest in science and his general wish to care for people and to protect life. He attended medical school at the Downstate University of New York. After his internship at Cornell Division of Bellevue Hospital, he served as a Peace Corps Doctor in Nigeria through the Public Health Service. He returned to complete his residency medical training at Mount Sinai Hospital, followed by his fellowship training in gastroenterology there. His medical career was outstanding in several ways. From his initial work as a half-time Research Physician, he published over 60 articles, particularly focused on malabsorption. In the last decade of his career, as Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai, he became an internationally recognized investigator and collaborator in the area of functional G.I. illness with the Rome Foundation. He was always a gifted teacher of house staff, and served in a leadership position at Mount Sinai, including Chief of the Gastroenterology Clinic, the Executive and Physician's Advisory Committees. But most of all he was an unusually sensitive and devoted physician and the many letters he received after retiring were exceptional tributes.

As a tribute to Dr. Gerson's contribution to medicine, and IBS Lecture in memory of Charles Gerson, MD is held at Mount Sinai Medical Center each year. Recordings of these tribute lectures can be found on the Mount Sinai Medical Center YouTube channel.