Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute for 20 years
It’s a special person who has the prestigious role leading the National Cancer Institute for several years and at the same time, help cancer patients who need advice at no charge. “Every evening he would be on the phone” talking to desperate patients, his son said about his father Dr. Alan Rabson.
Every medical school except one rejected his application because they filled their quota for Jews. He went on to teach generations of pathologists to determine if what they saw in a microscope was cancer. His deceased wife, Dr. Ruth Kirschstein was also a pathologist and the first woman to head one of the institutes at NIH.
I tell their story to honor individuals who went into medicine and made a profound impact on our lives.
