During the past half century, Dr. Harvey Goldman strode through the halls of most major hospitals in Boston's medical community as a pathologist, administrator, or consultant. His favorite role, though, was teacher. Rising from instructor to professor and distinguished scholar, he taught at Harvard Medical School and was a mentor to students for 45 years.
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"I did not go into medicine for the reasons most doctors do," Dr. Goldman said last year in an interview with a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center publication. "I liked the science behind it and the opportunity to teach."
Honored repeatedly by students for his teaching and by peers for his contributions to the field, Dr. Goldman was vice chairman of Beth Israel's pathology department when he died Monday at the medical center of complications from leukemia. He was 76 and lived in Boston.
"He was one of the founders of modern American gastrointestinal pathology," said Dr. Henry Appelman, professor of pathology at the University of Michigan. "Not only did he become an outstanding diagnostician, but he was able to synthesize what he was learning and put it into forms so that other people could learn from his experiences. He was a phenomenal teacher."
Dr. Goldman "was very dedicated to young people and he has brought up generations of Harvard Medical School students," said his wife, Dr. Eleonora Galvanek, who teaches pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "A huge amount of students have expressed to us the same thing, that he was a role model and a father figure."
An international leader in his field, Dr. Goldman received the distinguished pathologist award in 2006 from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, an organization he had served as president.
As technology allowed pathologists to examine and diagnose more biopsy samples from the gastrointestinal tract, Dr. Goldman helped define the scope and ambitions of his specialty. Dr. Goldman's research, according to Beth Israel, focused on inflammatory conditions of the esophagus, intestines, and stomach.
"Harvey Goldman is a national treasure," Dr. Jeffrey Saffitz, chief of pathology at Beth Israel, said at the time of the award. "He has had an extraordinary career as a pathologist and educator, and in the process has touched the lives of so many people in so many positive ways."
Among the lives Dr. Goldman touched were those in his own home. In a delicate balancing act that entailed working late into the night, he made time for his children's activities, such as Little League and softball games.
"Even though he had an extraordinary career and worked very hard, his family came first," his wife said.
"He really made a point to get out of work at 5:30 and participate in our Little League games and our homework," Dr. Palko Goldman of Cambridge said of his father. "But at the same time, he would have to get back to work, and I have this image of him working at the dining room table until the early hours of the morning. Lots of people sacrifice their career for their family or the opposite. I really think my father excelled at both and sacrificed neither."
Each Tuesday evening, when his wife worked late, Dr. Goldman brought his three children to the library. A voracious reader who kept a book or a medical journal open while watching the Red Sox from his season ticket seats in Fenway Park, he encouraged his children to read at least a half-hour every day.
"I learned to be a lifelong learner," said his daughter, Vierka of San Francisco, "and I think that's something I got from him."
Born in Philadelphia, where his father drove a taxi, Dr. Goldman grew up playing stickball and loving academics as much as he did baseball.
Waiting tables in Atlantic City to pay his tuition, he graduated in 1953 from Temple University in Philadelphia with a bachelor's degree in math and in 1957 from Temple's School of Medicine.
The following year he began a residency at Beth Israel, where, except for two years in the Navy, he spent the rest of his career. In addition to rising through the pathology ranks at Beth Israel, Dr. Goldman was a consultant at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
In varying capacities, his duties also brought him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked with the division of health sciences and technology, to New England Baptist Hospital, and to New England Deaconess Hospital, before it merged with Beth Israel.
As a visiting professor he taught at universities in several places, including Atlanta, Chicago, Paris, North Dakota, and Vancouver. For relaxation, though, his favorite distant destination was a resort in Italy along the coast of the Adriatic Sea.
In 1991, Dr. Goldman suffered a heart attack. He gave up smoking and, at his son's suggestion, used the money he had spent on cigarettes to buy season tickets for Red Sox games. Seated along the left field line, he often was visible in the background when the TV camera behind first base was aimed at the pitcher. That meant a national audience often saw him glance intently down at his book, he never went anywhere without one, even while the game was in progress.
At Fenway, away from the trappings of high-level work, "he was just Harvey, or Harv" to the surrounding fans, his son recalled, speaking at a family service Thursday.
"He would read between innings, or even during innings, which everyone around us came to know. I recall one night when a nonseason ticket holder a few seats down remarked, 'Look at that guy reading a book. How can you read a book at a baseball game?' Someone responded, 'He watches a thousand innings a year.' "
Writing in his blog Tuesday, Paul Levy, president and chief executive officer of Beth Israel, noted that Dr. Goldman died on what would have been Opening Day for the Red Sox and that it was "appropriate that the game was postponed, though, for it would not have seemed right for it to have taken place without him."
In the ballpark, in the classroom, and in his home, Dr. Goldman was a fan, cheering on players, students, and his children, and delighting in their accomplishments.
"He really experienced joy in other people's successes," his daughter said. "A lot of people pretend to, but they're secretly jealous, and he really wasn't like that, which is a very rare quality."
In addition to his wife of 43 years and his son and daughter, Dr. Goldman leaves another son, Sasha of Los Angeles, and a grandson.
The medical center will announce a memorial service.
