Ronald Dorfman

Ronald F. Dorfman (March 14, 1923-June 15, 2012) was a South African Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine and one of the discoverers of the Rosai–Dorfman disease.

Dorfman was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1923. Prior to World War II, he began attending medical school at the University of the Witwatersrand. Due to the war, his education was interrupted, and he was enlisted into the South African surgical unit to serve with the Allies in Egypt and Italy, from 1944 to 1946. After the war, he continued his education and by 1948 he obtained his MBBCh degree. He did his postdoctoral training at the Johannesburg General Hospital, the Medical School of London and at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Edinburgh, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists that earned him an FRCPath degree. He returned to his hometown in 1955, and continued education at the South African Institute for Medical Research.

Between 1959 and 1962 Dorfman had worked as a pathologist and lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand. His career, just like education, was also interrupted by his choice of living South Africa for the better life in the United States in 1963. He and his wife, Zelma, had moved there after Ron had a conference meeting in Uganda with Lauren Ackerman, who offered him a position at the Department of Surgical Pathology at Barnes Hospital, a division of the Washington University School of Medicine. The other reason for his move was because, and he quotes: “[I and Zelma] did not want our children to be brought up in a society, which propounded the superiority of the white races over the black peoples of South Africa.”

In 1968, upon the invite from David Korn, Dorfman had joined Stanford University School of Medicine, where in 1970s he along with Saul Rosenberg and Henry Kaplan had developed a lymphoma classification system that gave way for future researchers to determine the effect of their radiation-based treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which resulted in a cure for one of the fatal cancers. While working at Stanford, Dorfman got acquainted with Richard Kempson and together they had created training programs in surgical pathology, cytopathology, hematopathology and immunopathology. Dorfman had retired from SUSM in 1993. After the retirement, he continued to influence the pathology field by giving lectures, one of such was the Maude Abbott lecture at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology.

In 1988, Dorfman underwent a heart valve repair, which was conducted by cardiac surgeon, Norman Shumway. Despite surviving the repair, after a short illness, he had a heart failure which resulted in his death on June 15, 2012 in Palo Alto, California.

Dorfman was married to Zelma and together they had three daughters; Erica Dorfman (lives in Seattle), Annie Nieves (Clovis, California), and Carol Dorfman (Guilford, Connecticut). His brother, Stanley Dorfman, is a film director and producer.