- Date Of Birth: January 27, 1925
- Date Of Death: November 5, 2013
- State: Maine
Norman Jonas Selverstone, M.D., died in Damariscotta, Maine, on November 5th, 2013. Dr. Selverstone was born in Swainsboro, Georgia, on January 27, 1925, and spent his early years in Florida and New York City. He graduated from Erasmus Hall High School at the age of 16 and immediately entered the accelerated, wartime Naval Reserve program at Columbia University. Thereafter, he followed his brothers Bertram and Louis to Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1947. He completed his internship and residencies at Boston City Hospital. In 1949 he was awarded a Moseley Traveling Fellowship to study with renowned cardiologist John McMichael at Hammersmith Hospital in London. It was in London that he met Gladys “Bobbie” Wynn, the woman who would become his wife of nearly 62 years. After marrying in 1951, they moved to Germany where Dr. Selverstone served as chief of cardiology at the 320th General Hospital, U.S. Army, in Landstuhl. In 1953, he returned to a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at the Thorndike Laboratory at Boston City Hospital, serving as a Research Fellow with the legendary Dr. Maxwell Finland. He often spoke about these years as laying the foundation for a career focused solely on the needs of his patients, regardless of who was paying the bills. Dr. Selverstone joined the medical staff of the Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA, in 1954, where he would later become president of the medical staff. During his years there he trained and mentored many interns and residents as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School. However, the private practice in internal medicine that he established with his brother, Louis, was the heart of his professional life. For six decades, he served his patients with intelligence, compassion, ribald humor, and an uncanny ability to diagnose even the rarest of diseases.
