Gathering at Dr. Jerome Lowenstein's home, from left: Dean Robert Grossman, MD; Jordan Swartz, graduating AOA this month; Olga Zhdanova, MD; Shivani Agarwal, class of 2010, just completed an MPH at Johns Hopkins; Francisco Ramirez-Valle MD-PhD graduating, AOA, 2009; Dr. Lowenstein; Arthur Fox, MD; Martin Blaser, MD, Chair, Department of Medicine. Those pictured with Dr. Lowenstein are all colleagues or former students who wrote letters supporting his nomination.
Dean Robert Grossman recommends
Jerome Lowenstein
for the 2008-2009 recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award
Each year the various schools comprising New York University name an outstanding candidate for the Distinguished Teaching Award. This year the NYU School of Medicine selected Jerome Lowenstein, MD, Professor of Medicine in the Nephrology Division.
In his letter of recommendation for this honor, Dean Grossman said of Dr. Lowenstein:
" It is not very often that you are given the opportunity to write a letter of support for an individual that so clearly embodies the very qualities that our University looks for in deciding the recipient of their Distinguished Teaching Award. I am privileged to have such an opportunity in writing a letter supporting our school’s nomination of Dr. Jerome Lowenstein, M.D., Professor of Medicine, for the Distinguished Teaching Award. ...
"Dr. Lowenstein is recognized nationally, and internationally, for his dedication and commitment to education and humanism. He personifies the humanistic physician, and has inspired an entire generation of medical students, house staff and colleagues to follow in his footsteps to become caring healthcare professionals."
The letter concludes:
"I present Dr. Jerome Lowenstein to you as an absolutely outstanding candidate for the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award. With his passion, dedication to his students and patients, drive and scholarship, our School of Medicine community feels he is richly deserving of this prestigious award."
Below is the biographical statement that appears on the NYU website:
Jerome Lowenstein
Dr. Jerome Lowenstein was graduated from New York University in 1953 with a B.A., and received his M.D. degree from the NYU School of Medicine in 1957. His long career at the NYU School of Medicine, where he is considered "a lifer," has always entailed teaching, research and clinical practice as a nephrologist.
He recalls the importance of his role models during these early years of his career. Lewis Thomas was Chairman of the Department of Medicine during the period of Dr. Lowenstein's medical residency and soon after, Dr. Saul J. Farber filled the same role. Both were major figures in medical education in this country. Dr. Lowenstein found educating medical students and young physicians, in classrooms and at the bedside, "rewarding, exciting, and intellectually stimulating." In 1979, increasingly aware of the challenges that students and young physicians in training face to maintain their humanistic instincts at a time when the pace of medical education was becoming increasingly driven by the successes of biotechnology and the financial demands of the health care system, Dr. Lowenstein sought to create a program that would allow students to examine their experiences with their colleagues and their teachers. He recalled the importance of hospitals' "'midnight meals" during his years as a house officer. "The midnight meal, which consisted of the day's leftovers, provided a fine opportunity to communicate with colleagues directly, rather than by beeper and phone, about the day's "medical leftovers." He initiated the program for Humanistic Aspects of Medical Education which involved weekly small group meetings for third year medical students during their clerkship in Medicine.
Dr. Lowenstein's research began with studies of the renal hemodynamic changes in patients with essential hypertension. After a long and interesting trail, he undertook studies of the role of prostaglandins in goldfish adapted to sea water! spending several summer months working in the Mt. Desert Island Marine Biology Laboratory in Salsbury Cove, Maine, where he was introduced to transport physiology, a discipline which had its origins in the years after he studied physiology at NYU.
In 1991, he recognized that the reason the subject of acid-base physiology was generally considered by medical students and physicians as extremely daunting and arcane was possibly the lack of physical metaphors which facilitate understanding. He set out to describe acid-base regulation based on an understanding of the recently identified proteins that carry out the transport of acids and bases across cell membranes. The physical metaphor of known transport proteins which function as "exchangers", "pumps", and "channels" replaced the abstract concept of vectors with varying velocities in accounting for the movement of molecules across membranes. Acid and Basics: A Guide to Understanding Acid-Base Physiology was published by Oxford University Press in 1993. In his preface, Isaac Asimov wrote, "With the utmost delicacy, transport proteins facilitate the movement of ions across the cell membrane and preserve acid-base balance. It is impossible to read this book and to fail to understand the ins and outs of the process and, moreover, to get an appreciation of the wonders and delicacy of the intricate organization that leads to what we call life."
Having tasted the rich experience of creative writing, Dr. Lowenstein went back to examine his experiences with the Humanistic Medicine program. The next three years were devoted to writing essays about patients and medical education. The Midnight Meal and other Essays about Doctors, Patients, and Medicine was published by Yale University Press in 1997 and reissued by University of Michigan Press in 2005.
Dr. Lowenstein was familiar with the contributions of Lawrence J. Henderson on the subject of acid-base physiology and further research into his other writings about systems theory and the "fitness of the environment" challenged Lowenstein to explore and "interact" with his ideas in a fictional biography that, he felt, might be more interesting and creative than a straightforward scholarly biography. Henderson's Equation (Gadd Books) was published in 2008.
In 2001 he became one of the founding editors of the Bellevue Literary Review. He serves as the Nonfiction Editor for this publication which receives about 3000 submissions (fiction, creative nonfiction, essays and poetry) for each of its twice-yearly issues. In 2005, Dr. Lowenstein founded the Bellevue Literary Press, a small trade book press dedicated to publishing books at the intersection of literature, health, science and healing. With 16 books already in distribution, the Bellevue Literary Press has already received considerable attention and praise.
Dr. Lowenstein continues to maintain a busy clinical practice and a full teaching commitment which compliment his increasing literary activities.
