In memoriam: Arnold Gold, MD, 1925-2018
Pediatric neurologist Arnold Gold, MD, passed away on January 23 at New York Presbyterian Hospital after a brief illness. He was 92.
Gold, a long-time professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, was internationally known for his medical expertise and for establishing, with his wife Sandra, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. The Gold Foundation is dedicated to promoting humanism in medicine.
Gold earned his medical degree from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland in 1954, followed by an internship at Charity Hospital in New Orleans and residency at Cincinnati Children’s, where he worked with Albert Sabin on the polio vaccine. After completing a fellowship at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 1961, he began his pediatric neurology practice – a field he helped advance.
Gold believed that the quality of care was not just determined by clinical acumen but by being delivered in a patient-centered, empathic way. In the 1970s and ’80s, when technological breakthroughs and scientific discoveries brought radical changes to healthcare, Gold became concerned that the compassionate component of care would be lost. “Students were becoming enamored with this exploding technology, and they were losing something I felt was very important – and that was the intimate doctor-patient relationship,” he said. “They became more interested in technology, rather than the patient as a person.”
In an effort to change the culture, the Gold Foundation initiated the White Coat Ceremony for beginning medical students, during which they take the Hippocratic Oath. The purpose is to welcome them to the medical profession and set the standard for how they will practice. The first White Coat Ceremony was held at Columbia in 1993. Today, 97 percent of US medical schools, as well as medical schools in 13 other countries, hold White Coat Ceremonies.
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) President and CEO Darrell Kirch, MD, issued a statement upon Gold’s death. He said, “The passing of Dr. Arnold Gold is a tremendous loss for the AAMC, the academic medicine community, and the countless lived he touched – from his patients and their families to his students, residents and colleagues. The Gold Foundation’s work has had a profound effect on the way the nation’s medical schools and teaching hospitals teach and practice medicine…. As we mourn his passing, we remain fiercely committed – now more than ever – to preserving his legacy and advancing his work to promote humanism in medicine.”
