{{Short description|American physician}} {{Infobox person | name = Soma Weiss | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1898|01|27}} | birth_place = Bistriţa, Transylvania, | death_date = {{Death date and age|1942|01|31|1898|01|27}} | death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | nationality = | other_names = | known_for = describing the Mallory-Weiss syndrome | education = | alma mater = | employer = | occupation = Physician | title = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | spouse = | children = | parents = | relatives = Ernest Sachs Jr. (cousin) }} '''Soma Weiss''' (January 27, 1898 – January 31, 1942) was a Hungarian-born American physician known for describing the Mallory–Weiss syndrome with George Kenneth Mallory.
==Early life== Soma Weiss was born in 1898 in Bistriţa, Transylvania, Austro-Hungarian Empire.<ref name=Bio>{{cite news |title=Soma Weiss Day Marks 75th Anniversary {{!}} Annual event honors noted physician, teacher, guide and friend |first=Dr. Peter |last=Tishler |date=2015-01-08 |work=Harvard Medical School |publisher=The President and Fellows of Harvard College |url=https://hms.harvard.edu/news/soma-weiss-day-marks-75th-anniversary |access-date=2018-09-01 }}</ref> He studied physiology and biochemistry in Budapest. Immediately after the end of World War I, he immigrated to the United States and qualified in medicine in 1923. He was of Jewish ancestry.
Ernest Sachs Jr., a neurosurgeon who was Goldman Sachs's founder Marcus Goldman's great-grandson, was Weiss's cousin.<ref name=Cousins>{{cite web |title=Biography: Ernest Sachs, Jr., MD |date=2016-05-31 |work=The Society of Neurological Surgeons |url=http://www.societyns.org/society/bio.aspx?MemberID=18192 |access-date=2016-05-31 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611092553/http://www.societyns.org/society/bio.aspx?MemberID=18192 |archive-date=2016-06-11}}</ref>
==Career== After initially working at Cornell University, Weiss moved to Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 1925, and in 1939 became physician-in-chief at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (which merged to form Brigham and Women's Hospital in 1980) and Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic at HMS.<ref name=Bio/> He published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, the majority relating to cardiovascular diseases and pharmacology.
==Death== Weiss died suddenly on January 31, 1942.<ref name=Bio/> He had developed a sudden, excruciating and enduring headache which he recognized as a ruptured intracranial aneurysm; he made it home, where he was briefly cared for by medical staff he had trained, but soon died.<ref name=Bio/>
==Legacy== In April 1940, Weiss worked with his students, which included his cousin (and future neurosurgeon) Ernest Sachs Jr., to launch the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Undergraduate Research Assembly; after Weiss's death, it was renamed the Soma Weiss Student Research Day.<ref name=Cousins/><ref name=2019SWSRD>{{cite news |title=A Grand Tradition |first=M.R.F. |last=Buckley |date=2019-03-14 |work=Harvard Medical School |publisher=The President and Fellows of Harvard College |url=https://hms.harvard.edu/news/grand-tradition |access-date=2020-12-06}}</ref> The Scholars in Medicine Office of HMS sponsors the annual forum, which "provides students with an opportunity to present their scholarly work and share their findings with faculty and fellow students through poster sessions."<ref name=2020SWSRD>{{cite news |title=Unstoppable Science |first=Bobbie |last=Collins |date=2020-04-06 |work=Harvard Medical School |publisher=The President and Fellows of Harvard College |url=https://hms.harvard.edu/news/unstoppable-science |access-date=2020-12-06}}</ref> The schedule includes presentations of posters and papers, the presentation of a number of student prizes, the announcing of a student scholarship, and the presentation of mentoring awards to professors awards; as of the 80th Soma Weiss Student Research Day, held virtually (due to COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts) on 16 March 2020, the awards included:<ref name=2019SWSRD/><ref name=2020Virtual>{{cite web |title=Soma Weiss Student Research Day |work=Office of Scholarly Engagement |publisher=Harvard Medical School |date=2020-03-02 |url=https://meded.hms.harvard.edu/soma-weiss-student-research-day |access-date=2020-12-06}}</ref> *Robert Ebert Prize for Health Care Delivery Research or Service *Leon Eisenberg Prize for Medicine in Society Research *Judah Folkman Prize for Clinical/Translational Science Research *Elizabeth D. Hay Prize for Basic Science Research *Charles Janeway Prize for International Research or Service *Martin Prince Scholarship for Student Innovation *Scholars in Medicine Excellence in Mentoring Awards
==Medical achievements== * He was the first to describe the carotid sinus hypersensitivity syndrome * In 1925, with Hermann Blumgart performed the first application of in-vivo circulating blood radioactive tracers * In 1929, with G. Kenneth Mallory described hemorrhagic lacerations of the cardiac orifice of the stomach due to vomiting: Mallory-Weiss syndrome * In 1942, Weiss published a classic in the history of medicine describing the self-observations of Alfred S. Reinhart, a Harvard Medical School student with subacute bacterial endocarditis.<ref name="Weiss 1942">{{cite journal |author=Weiss S |year=1942 |title=Self-observations and psychologic reactions of medical student ASR to the onset and symptoms of subacute bacterial endocarditis |journal=J Mt Sinai Hosp |volume=8 |pages=1079–1095}}</ref><ref name="TishlerWeiss2010">{{cite journal |author=Tishler PV |year=2010 |title=Soma Weiss, Alfred S. Reinhart, and the care of the patient |journal=Perspect Biol Med |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=75–86 |doi=10.1353/pbm.0.0142 |pmid=20173297}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/med00042/catalog Soma Weiss papers, 1922-1957. GA 92. Harvard Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass.] * [http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/26.html Soma Weiss at Who Named It]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Soma}} Category:Cornell University faculty Category:Harvard Medical School faculty Category:American cardiologists Category:1898 births Category:1942 deaths Category:People from Bistrița Category:Hungarian emigrants to the United States Category:Deaths from intracranial aneurysm