To the specialty of gastroenterology, Jerome Siegel, MD, was a leader and pioneer in endoscopy, the author of a multitude of publications including 123 peer-reviewed articles and a textbook on ERCP published in 1991 that remains a standard today, as well as a high-volume provider and a patient advocate. But to his family, friends, colleagues, students and mentees, the list of positive qualities attributable to Dr. Siegel is too long for this paragraph. He was, succinctly, a mensch.
“People loved him for his graciousness. If someone had been struggling with a procedure for two hours or two days, he’d walk in and fix it in two minutes and say, ‘Well, I was lucky.’ He was humble. He was beloved by his staff, the fellows who worked with him, the nurses; within the New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy here in New York and internationally, he was just really loved as a great person,” said Franklin Kasmin, MD, a gastroenterologist with Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City, and a practice partner of Dr. Siegel for more than 30 years.
“Despite his seniority and legendary status in the field, he was always a very down to earth individual. Easy to make friends with, always gracious, always interested in knowing what you were doing, always encouraging, sharing his anecdotes and being supportive. That’s what made him so attractive to me and his junior colleagues,” said Vivek Kaul, MD, the Segal-Watson Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in New York.
With a background in pharmacy and chemistry, Dr. Siegel graduated Alpha Omega Alpha from the Medical College of Georgia in 1960, followed by an internship in Allentown, Pa., military service as a flight surgeon with the U.S. Air Force, and a residency in medicine and gastroenterology at the VA Hospital, in the Bronx, and Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, in New York City. After residency, Dr. Siegel entered private practice in Atlanta but left in 1973 to work as a research fellow with Shiela Sherlock at the Royal Free Hospital, University of London. The move would prove pivotal for him.
“It made a huge difference,” said Beverly Siegel, his wife of 68 years. “In the 1970s, people weren’t doing much advanced endoscopy. This was the environment that allowed him to realize his vision for gastroenterology.”
The family, which includes two children, Brian and Dori, could have stayed indefinitely in London, but after two years of studying and teaching his skills to others, Dr. Siegel decided to return to the United States and settle in New York.
“We had two children in school. They wanted to come back, and he didn’t want them to be upset. Above medicine, Jerry was a family man,” Mrs. Siegel said.
“He made time for his family no matter where we were, what we were doing, what was going on,” Brian Siegel said. “It was a wonderful two years, but we did want to come back, and New York was the Mecca for medicine.”
In New York, Dr. Siegel took a position as the training director for the fellowship program at New York Medical College in 1975, initiating one of the first advanced fellowships in North America for advanced therapeutic endoscopy at Beth Israel Hospital North, in 1989. Dedicated to teaching others, he participated in live demonstrations and symposia around the world and visited Vietnam annually to donate equipment and teach procedures.
More often, though, he taught close to home—sometimes literally at his home.
“He loved teaching. I can think of many times at our dining table, every chair was taken, but not for dinner—for work,” Mrs. Siegel said.
“Papers, laptops, everything,” Mr. Siegel added.
“They were working on meta-analyses, these young doctors, brilliant, with Jerry at the head of the table,” Mrs. Siegel said.
Like many great teachers, Dr. Siegel had a knack for recognizing potential and talent in his students, sometimes before they themselves did, as when he turned to Dr. Kasmin, at that time a first-year fellow at Beth Israel, in New York City, and said, “‘Here, take the scope.’
“I said I wasn’t allowed to do that yet, but Jerry persisted, so I took the scope and proceeded to work with him the whole week. We did 15 ERCPs that week. Apparently, he saw something in me,” Dr. Kasmin said.
Truptesh Kothari, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, met Dr. Siegel during fellowship training at Lenox Hill Hospital. “He was precepting me during an upper endoscopy. He gave me not only the pearls of upper endoscopy but also a virtual roadmap for visualizing the bile duct during ERCP once you see the ampulla. He was a great mentor, and worked for the betterment of his mentees,” Dr. Kothari said.
And he was as devoted to patients as he was to trainees. Although his primary affiliations were with Beth Israel Medical Center and Doctors Hospital, Dr. Siegel had temporary privileges at 40 hospitals in the tri-state area and was known to travel to where he was needed.
“If someone had to have something done and there was no one for miles around, they’d say, ‘Dr. Siegel, can you come?’ and he’d get in his car at the end of a busy day and go off to New Jersey or Connecticut or upstate New York,” Dr. Kasmin said.
“He joked that his office was in the trunk of his car,” said Sidney Winawer, MD, the emeritus chief of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition service and chair of the Cancer Prevention Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering, in New York City.
Later in life, Dr. Siegel continued to fan the flame of collaboration and community, teaming up with other New York–based GI luminaries, including Dr. Winawer, Jerome Waye, MD, and the late Burton Korelitz, MD, to form the GI Champions.
“After visiting an exhibit one day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we started talking and came to the same conclusion: Wouldn’t it be nice to get together with colleagues who are no longer in practice or academic positions and just have a casual lunch and talk about the old times? And we did that,” Dr. Winawer said.
At first, the GI Champions met at various restaurants. Later, they met around the same table that had hosted so many study sessions in the Siegels’ apartment.
“Those luncheons were really hilarious. We talked about all the good stuff, also the near misses we averted in the early days of endoscopy. We had a great time, and Jerry just brought so much to the table,” Dr. Winawer said.
“Jerry lived a long life, a very full life,” Mrs. Siegel said, “and he lived every minute of every day.”
Editor’s Note: Dr. Siegel was a member of the Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News editorial board for many decades. He played an integral role in the publication’s mission of providing timely, relevant information for gastroenterologists to use in their practices. His support and guidance will be long remembered.
This article is from the November 2024 print issue.