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A legend in the field of pathology, the late Ramzi S. Cotran, MD, helped hundreds of medical students over his 30-year career as chair of the Pathology Department. He was also a founding editor of a textbook known the world over as a necessity for anyone studying pathology. On Monday, Jan. 23, friends, family and colleagues came together to dedicate the Ramzi Cotran Conference Center, a state-of-the-art educational hub in the Department of Pathology. Michael A. Gimbrone, Jr., MD, the outgoing Ramzi S. Cotran Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and chairman of the Department of Pathology at BWH, said the center has a capacity of 100, and will host dozens of pathological conferences a week, as well as didactic lectures and the department’s grand rounds.
“This is a special place dedicated to the legacy of a very special man,” said Gimbrone. “Dr. Cotran was an icon of American pathology. He was the chairman’s chairman and recognized internationally for his teaching and his mentorship.”
The Ramzi Cotran Conference Center
Gimbrone said plans were made for the center shortly after Cotran’s passing in 2000. The intent was to simply construct the center itself, but when the designs were made, it was determined the existing space couldn’t accommodate what they hoped to build. So the plans were revised to include the total redesign of the outmoded space for all of Pathology’s clinical activities.
“The dedication of The Ramzi Cotran Conference Center is the capstone of a multi-year renovation project that has transformed the clinical facilities of the Department of Pathology,” said Gimbrone. “This is a most fitting tribute to Dr. Ramzi Cotran, who was our department’s chairman for three decades—an internationally recognized educator, mentor and humanist, who transformed the modern discipline of pathology.”
This entailed a major institutional commitment of space in the Shapiro Center for a state-of-the-art Advanced Molecular Diagnostics Center in 2008, the redesign and automation of the clinical laboratories on Amory-2 in 2010, and finally the restructuring of the anatomical laboratories on Amory-3—culminating with the opening of space to house the conference center. Cotran received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Mentoring from HMS in 2000. He was the lead author through five editions of “The Pathologic Basis of Disease,” the world’s most widely-read textbook of pathology. The textbook, which was begun in association with Dr. Stanley Robbins, grew in size and scope under Cotran’s guidance and serves students and physicians in virtually every country and on every continent.
Friends and Colleagues Remember
At the dedication, colleagues and family took the podium to share their memories of Cotran with an audience that filled the center to beyond capacity. BW/F President Betsy Nabel, MD, first met Cotran in the 1980s, and described the Pathology Department as a place where learning would always occur.
“I intend that we will all remember him,” Nabel said. Eugene Braunwald, MD, former chairman of the Department of Medicine, described Cotran as a creative scientist and an extraordinary teacher.
“He had the capability to teach on every level,” Braunwald said.
Julie Smith was Cotran’s assistant for 25 years, and recalled the evenings when he would take any staff working late out to dinner, an invitation that they were happy to accept. She described Cotran as one who appreciated all his staff, knowing how important they were to the department.
“RC cared about all of us,” Smith said. “If an issue was work-related or personal, he would take the time to listen.”
When Gimbrone was a third-year medical student, he had his sights set on a career in surgery. Then he met Cotran, and everything changed. Back then, Gimbrone had focused his studies on combining research with understanding the mechanism of a disease. He discussed this with Cotran, who suggested he switch gears to pathology.
“He made the subject matter come alive in a way that few other people could,” said Gimbrone. “He had a vivid way of presenting and he also let people, especially young residents, become teachers at an early stage in their career.”