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Mary Stuart Blakely Fisher, 1922-2006 MD Photos
It's hard to speak of her in anything but superlatives.
Mary Stuart Blakely Fisher MD 1922-2006
In a class of anything, first in the class.
Radiology October 2006 In Memoriam
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Dr. Mary Stuart Fisher, the mother figure of Philadelphia Radiology, died on April 24, 2006, at the age of 83 years.
Dr. Fisher was active in her faculty position at Temple University Medical School (Philadelphia, Pa) until the last three 3 years of her life. For more than 50 years, she taught hundreds of residents and thousands of medical students about radiology at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital, the Philadelphia General Hospital, and the Temple University Medical School. She was a role model for many of the women among them.
Dr. Fisher came into medicine at a time when women were accepted as students but not always as equals. She graduated first in her high school class in Binghamton, NY, first in her class at Bryn Mawr College, and first in her class at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (New York, NY) in 1948. She completed her internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and her radiology residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
After a fellowship with Groover, Christie, and Merritt (Washington, DC), a private group that maintained its own training programs. Dr. Fisher accepted an offer at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital, as shared service for several medical schools. She taught students and residents from all five of them. After 8 years, she came to Philadelphia General Hospital, also a service shared by several medical schools. When the Philadelphia General Hospital closed in 1975, her former resident, Marc Lapayocher, head of diagnosis at Temple University, recruited her to the position where she spent the rest of her 50-year academic career.
Dr. Fisher was a member of the American Medical Association, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Radiological Society of North America, and the American College of Radiology, the Association of University Radiology, and the American Association of Women in Radiology, the Society of Thoracic Radiology, and the Pennsylvania Radiological Society. She served as a consultant to the National Board of Medical Examiners.
Dr. Fisher’s bibliography contains some 50 papers and chapters. She received her most pleasing award for teaching from Temple University, including the Golden Apple award, which was selected by medical students in 1990. She received the Honored Radiologist award from Pennsylvania Radiological Society in 1985 and the Outstanding Educator award from the Philadelphia Roentgen Ray Society in 1992. The same year, the American Association for Women Radiologists gave her the Marie Curie Award, its highest recognition. The Philadelphia Roentgen Ray Society renamed its annual Outstanding Educator award for her in 2006.
She is survived by her husband, George Ross Fisher III; daughters, Miriam and Margaret; and sons George and Stuart.
Otha W. Linton, MSJ
Originally published: Wednesday, September 20, 2017; most-recently modified: Monday, June 03, 2019