On Sunday, the world lost one of its most fearless leaders in global public health.  Dr. Allan Rosenfield, Dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University for over two decades, succumbed to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) after a three-year battle.  So much has already been written in tribute to Dr. Rosenfield that goes straight to the heart, including the following from my good friends, who were also students during his tenure.

From Kristen:

“Dr. Rosenfield was an OB/GYN with a passion for women’s rights and access to comprehensive reproductive health care.  He was also a champion of projects related to reducing maternal mortality and to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  It is largely because of Dr. Rosenfield that the Population and Family Health department at Columbia is so strong and robust.  He started in PopFam and always looked out for us once he was the dean of the entire school.”

And this from Suzanne:

“It is not an exaggeration to say that Dr. Rosenfield’s work has saved and improved more lives and done more to improve reproductive health than anyone else I can think of. Through his work and his tireless advocacy, Dr. Rosenfield has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, primarily women and girls, as he pushed the field of public health, and the world, to focus on preventing maternal mortality and to ‘put the M back in MCH’ (maternal and child health), as his seminal article was titled. He grew the MSPH to the major force it is today, and oversaw the training of thousands of students of public health in his 22-year tenure as Dean. He helped to found my department there, Population and Family Health, and so had a very real role in my life, although I never had the honor of studying with or working for him directly. He was Dean while I was a student there, and in addition to the work of running the school, raising money, researching, advising major foundations, and participating in the boards of every major repro health organization, he was very involved with the student body and eager to attend our events, hear our concerns, and mentor individual students.”

As PopFam students, we always knew we had his special support and backing.  I will always remember how he took time out of his hectic schedule to come to one of our fledgling meetings as we worked on founding the first reproductive health advocacy group at the school, which is still going strong five years later.

To say that Dr. Rosenfield is one of my heroes is an understatement.  I only hope that the work I do can be a testament to his life and service.