In Memoriam: Jerome Schofferman, MD (1944-2025)

On May 30, 2025, NASS lost an extraordinary member and leader, and the road lost an incredible person. On that day, Jerome Schofferman, MD, died of cholangiocarcinoma, in hospice.

Jerome was born on December 22, 1944, in Newark, New Jersey. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rutgers in 1966 and an MD from SUNY downstate in 1970. He then migrated to the West Coast, which he never left, for internship and residency at Harbor General Hospital (now Harbor–UCLA Medical Center) and completed his training in 1973. He held a variety of positions including assistant chief of the Emergency Department at Harbor General, and an appointment as adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at UCLA until 1977.

He became assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCSF and held that appointment from 1977-1985. He was the first medical director of hospice, and started the AIDS program at San Francisco General. However, I think we will know Jerome best for his subsequent foray into private practice in internal medicine and pain management, and his long-term involvement with the Spine Care medical group.

His involvement in NASS was no less impressive. I first got to know Jerome when I joined the board in 2006 and we were busy formulating the Conflict of Interest in Disclosure Guidelines for which NASS has become famous. Not only were these the most rigorous guidelines of any professional medical association; they actually received a positive reference in the New York Times.

The drivers behind the COI guidelines were Jerome, David and Sheila Rothman, and Stan Herring. Working with this group was an extraordinary pleasure. The bonds that developed clearly transcended medicine. I remember David and Sheila Rothman rearranging the place cards at a NASS presidential dinner so that we would all be sitting together. Among his other remarkable contributions to NASS was his longstanding leadership of the Committee on Ethics and Professionalism. He was indefatigable and rigorous, yet reasonable. These meetings were always thought provoking. Everyone at the conclusion of them were a bit spent due to the intensity, and insight that characterized.

Jerome also had an interesting and delightful personal side. He met his wife Sally in 1978 at Big Sur, California, the birthplace of the Human Potential Movement. At that time, he was head of the ED at UCLA, and had just introduced the concept of alternative medical healing. The attraction was natural and mutual. Both had terrific senses of humor, a love of the outdoors (bicycling trips in Europe, Costa Rica, and a notable ride from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin to the Mississippi River) and deep spiritual interests.

Jerome and Sally studied Buddhism together and meditated together. They were frequent patrons of the San Francisco Zen Center. A particularly vivid memory that Sally shared was their first difficult weekend, which, in her words, resulted in a “terrible fight.” Sally recalled the Heart Sutra; that fight was their last.

Jerome was fond of quoting Albert Einstein, particularly his tenet that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. This seems particularly relevant now. As Sally shared with me, Jerome was such a strong life-force that it seems inconceivable that he would no longer be with us.

Thank you, Jerome, for all you have done for your patients, for research, for education, and for NASS. We shall never see you, but would like to pass this way again.

Dr. Jerome Schofferman is survived by his wife, Sally Holland, their daughter Holly of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and two grandchildren.