Carl Rosow

Dr. Carl Elliott Rosow

We are sad to share the news that Dr. Carl Elliott Rosow, 74, died on Jan. 21. Carl was the co-director, and director, of the HST 150 Principles of Pharmacology course for more than two decades. Stuart Forman, MD, PhD, who is the current director of the course, shared some remembrances of Carl from Mark Dershwitz, MD, PhD, who is a long-term visiting lecturer in HST 150 (teaching drug metabolism, pharmacogenetics, toxicology, and opioids):

From my perspective, Carl’s devotion to teaching HST 150 was truly inspirational. Last year, suffering not only constant pain from his chronic illness, but also visual impairments after radiation treatment to his brain, Carl continued to attend every class meeting until in-class meetings were forbidden due to Covid-19. He enthusiastically delivered the core material that he had developed for the course, and always looked forward to the insightful questions that HST students asked.   

When I first met Carl, as an MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) anesthesia resident in the 1990s, he was an active researcher and a clinical guru on anesthetic pharmacology. He was a fantastic role model as a physician, always carefully weighing how best to care for our patients.  He loved to mentor young anesthesiologists and researchers in our department, and when illness prevented him from contributing to patient care, he threw himself into other service activities. In addition to teaching pharmacology to medical students (for many years both for HST and HMS Pathways), he helped dozens of our junior colleagues with the academic promotion process as chair of our departmental Academic Appointments and Promotions Committee. 

The central theme of Carl’s professional career was generosity toward patients, students, clinical trainees and mentees. 

We will greatly miss Carl's invaluable contributions to HST, and to medicine. Here is the full obituary.