Bruce J. Sobol

Bruce J. Sobol, MD

Soldier, artist, inventor, physician, author, wood worker, avid skier and tennis player, Bruce J. Sobol was born in New York City on June 10th, 1923, the second child and eldest son of Ira and Ida Sobol. He attended the Fieldston School in the Bronx, where he played soccer. The caption beneath his yearbook picture in 1941 reads, ""With a bent for applied psychology."" His undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College were interrupted by military service from June 1943 to November of 1945, during which time he trained with the Army Air Corp and later fought as a Pfc in the Eighth Armored Division of the Ninth Army, seeing action in the Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central European campaigns.

He graduated from Swarthmore in 1947 and went on to earn an MD from New York University College of Medicine in 1950. His skill as an artist and cartoonist was already evident in his contributions to the Eighth Armored Division's commemorative volume and was displayed again in the drawings that accompanied the photographs of faculty and graduates in the 1950 Yearbook. He served as Intern and then Resident in the 3rd Medical Division at Bellevue Hospital, as well as serving a Residency in cardiology at Boston Veterans Hospital. Over the next thirty years he held various posts at Bellevue, New York University College of Medicine, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, and Grasslands Hospital (later the Westchester County Medical Center), where he was Director of the Cardiopulmonary Laboratory from 1959 to 1976 and where he remained an Attending Physician until 1984. Under his direction the Laboratory produced over one hundred published papers. He also gave his time to the Westchester Heart Association, serving as President from 1974 to 1978.

He married Barbara Gordon of White Plains in 1951. Their first child was born in 1954, and their second in 1957. During this time he invented and patented a device for gas or fluid exchange. He played clay-court tennis whenever weather permitted and enjoyed skiing at Stowe whenever time permitted. A self-described ""wood butcher,"" he equipped the family's house with a basement wood-working shop from which emerged several lovely pieces of furniture and two harpsichords.

In 1977 he and Barbara moved from Port Chester, NY to Ridgefield, CT where he served for two years on the Conservation Commission. In 1978 he became the Director of Clinical Research for Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd., and later served as Director of Medical Research. He was Boehringer's Acting Medical Director when he retired in 1983.

After retirement he developed an interest in the theory of evolution and some of its modern proponents whom he dubbed the ""Pop Darwinians."" He worked for many years corresponding, researching, and writing what he intended to be a corrective to their misleading depiction of science. He also began to think again about his time as a soldier and began to write about his experiences in combat. The onset of Alzheimers Disease prevented him from completing this work.

He and Barbara moved to Madison, WI in July, 2009. He died in Madison on December 20th.

He is survived by his sister Helen Lane of Hamden, CT, his brother Donald of Pinescrest, FL, his wife Barbara, his sons Peter and Scott, and two grandchildren.