Robert A Fishman

Robert (“Bob”) Fishman embarked on his career, which spanned the formative years of neurology as a discipline, immediately after the second world war. He became interested in medicine at high school, when a botany teacher suggested that he consider a medical career. He entered Columbia College at age 16 and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school at age 22.

His family and colleagues remember him as a risk taker in career matters. Fishman interned at Yale University and sought additional training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston before starting his neurology residency at Columbia University in New York. At the time, Columbia’s neurology programme was the largest in the United States. Although the Korean war interrupted his career, landing him at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington DC, Fishman considered Walter Reed an excellent place to learn neuroscience. After the war, he completed …