Harvey Golomb becomes medicine chairman

Harvey Golomb selected as chairman of department of medicine at University of Chicago Medical Center

August 10, 1998

Harvey Morris Golomb, MD, professor of medicine, section chief of hematology/oncology at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and a renowned cancer researcher and clinician, was appointed chairman of the department of medicine.

Golomb, 55, replaces Arthur Rubenstein, MD, who left last October to become dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and executive vice president of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

"I was delighted to secure such a distinguished scholar to lead such a distinguished department," said Glenn D. Steele, MD, dean of the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at the University. "Harvey Golomb not only has impressive scientific and clinical credentials, but has also demonstrated remarkable clinical expertise and considerable teaching and administrative skills as director since 1981 of medical oncology."

An authority on the genetic abnormalities that cause various cancers and on chemotherapy for the leukemias, lymphomas, and lung cancer, Golomb was among the first physicians in the world to perform clinical studies using interferon, the first of a series of naturally produced substances that can boost the patient's own immune system as a weapon against cancer.

The author of nearly 350 peer-reviewed publications and nearly 300 scientific abstracts or other publications, Golomb has won many awards and served from 1990 to 1991 as president of the American Society for Clinical Oncology--the leading society for clinical cancer research.

A graduate of the University of Chicago (BA, 1964) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (MD, 1968), Golomb completed his residency at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine--where he also did a fellowship in medical genetics. He came to the University of Chicago in 1973 for a two-year fellowship in hematology/oncology and joined the faculty in 1975. He became section chief of hematology/oncology in 1981.

The department of medicine is the largest department at the University of Chicago, including more than 180 full-time faculty whose clinical and scientific expertise have brought the department nationwide recognition as a leading center in general internal medicine and the subspecialties.

The internal medicine residency program, for example, is one of the most sought after training programs in the country--attracting thousands of applicants annually for the 25 residency positions. Every medicine subspecialty that was evaluated in the latest U.S.News & World Report "Best Hospitals" survey placed near the top nationwide and was also the highest ranked program in Illinois.