Professor of Medicine Emeritus, Tufts University School of Medicine
Dr. Jane Desforges, an eminent member of the hematology community and former ASH president (1984-1985), died in Melrose, MA, on September 7, 2013, at the age of 91.
Dr. Desforges, the daughter of a physician, graduated from Wellesley College in 1942 and from Tufts University School of Medicine in 1945. She studied hematology with Dr. Max Wintrobe in Salt Lake City from 1947 to 1948 and then returned to Boston, where she worked for 25 years at the Boston City Hospital. During that time, she rose from medical resident to become director of laboratories of Boston City Hospital and professor of medicine at Tufts University. In 1973, Dr. Desforges joined the Hematology-Oncology Division of the New England Medical Center (now Tufts Medical Center) and remained there until her retirement in 1995.
She served on numerous ASH committees as well as on the editorial board ofBlood. Additionally, she was associate editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and was a member of numerous advisory boards and committees, including those of the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the American Board of Internal Medicine. In recognition of her many contributions to the field, Dr. Desforges was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 1990. These are the bare facts of the long career of an illustrious physician, but the achievements listed in her curriculum vitae do not reveal the real Jane Desforges. When she joined the Hematology-Oncology Division of Tufts Medical Center, I was technically her boss. In reality, however, I was her student. I learned much from Jane during our 25-year association, but the most important lessons were the value of empathy for the sick, especially when treatment wasn't working; acceptance of the frailty of the human condition; and equanimity despite personal adversity.
Jane was much loved by her patients, students, and colleagues. She received an award for outstanding teaching from the medical students an astounding 13 times and, in 2007, was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Teaching Award from the American College of Physicians. Jane's patients adored her because they knew that she insisted on the best that a physician could offer patients, even if it meant the doctor's personal sacrifice. After explaining a complex treatment for Hodgkin disease to a patient, she would return later that day or early the next day to be sure that her patient understood the situation and to probe for more questions or doubts. I can recall standing by her side on the hematology in-patient ward while she explained to a family that their elderly father with relapsed acute myeloid leukemia had severe pneumonia. Do they want her to administer antibiotics or simply make an old man with a soon-to-be fatal disease as comfortable as possible without treatment? All clinical hematologists have faced this dilemma, but the delicacy and love emanating from Jane could not and cannot be matched.
Jane was an inspiration to the generation of women in medicine that followed her. When asked about their goal in medicine, so many women who were medical students or trainees in hematology told me, "I want to be like Dr. Desforges." This response is a foundational element in her wonderful legacy.
It was not easy for a woman to become a physician in the 1940s, and it was not easy for a woman to rise to the top of academia. She was one of five women in her Tufts medical school class of 104 students, and as a woman, she was barred from entering the urologic ward of Boston City Hospital. Still, the slights that she endured failed to deter her - indeed, she seemed to have gained from them.
Jane's clinical skills were legendary, her knowledge of hematology was encyclopedic, and she could reliably provide an instant answer while the hematology fellow was still looking for it in the index of Wintrobe. She could find the cause of fever in a boy with sickle cell anemia that was missed by every other physician who had examined the child. She taught her patients hematology because she wanted them to understand the disease they had and what her task was. Jane was wondrously straightforward and honest. There was no hidden agenda, no fudging, no excusing, and no self-promotion. She expected you to meet and even exceed her high standards. In a Hematology-Oncology Division that was home to an extraordinary group of research stars, Jane Desforges topped the list of luminaries simply by being herself.
