Solomon, Sidney, 1923-1992

Sidney Solomon, Ph.D.

"We were completely free in a semi-hostile, semi-friendly setting and could make a first-rate medical school in an area which may or may not have had the substrate for doing it. It was a great adventure." So spoke Dr. Sidney Solomon in 1984 when asked about the beginnings of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Dr. Solomon was one of the founding faculty of the new school and long-time chairman of the school's physiology department.

In 1923, Sidney Solomon (1923-1992) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts where he lived until his started college. He attended a year of college and then joined the Marine Corps and served in the South Pacific. Dr. Solomon returned to college at the end of World War II and received his B.S. degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1948 and his Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Chicago in 1952. He took a job as an instructor of physiology at the Medical College of Virginia and taught for eleven years. His last year was spent on a Guggenheim Fellowship in the German Republic working with Carl Ulrich. While in Berlin, he received a job offer from the dean of the new medical school in New Mexico. Dr. Solomon arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June, 1963 and stayed until his death in 1992. He served as Chairman of Physiology for 15 years and taught physiology until his retirement from the university in 1989. During this time he also spent one year as Program Director of Metabolic Biology and one year as Acting Director of the Division of Physiology, Cellular and Molecular Biology with the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Solomon died May 16, 1992 and was survived by his wife, Mina, and two daughters, Anne Solomon-Sanchez and Susan Rivera.

From the guide to the Sidney Solomon Oral History Collection, 1984-1992, (New Mexico Health Historical Collection, UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center.)