CAROLA BLITZMAN GUTTMACHER EISENBERG M.D.

1917 - 2021

EISENBERG, Carola Blitzman Guttmacher M.D. September 15, 1917 - March 11, 2021 Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Carola was one of very few women in her medical school class. Driven by a strong social conscience instilled by her parents, she came to the US in 1945 to further her training in child psychiatry, working with Leo Kanner, at Johns Hopkins who had recently first described and coined the term autism. In Baltimore, she met and married Manfred Guttmacher and had two sons, Laurence, a Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at the University of Rochester and Alan, retired Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Development at the National Institutes of Health. She practiced as a child psychiatrist in Baltimore until 1967. After Manfred's death, she married Leon Eisenberg and moved to Cambridge, beginning to work at MIT, where she rose to become Dean of Student Affairs. In 1978, she became Dean of Student Affairs at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Eisenberg's concern for refugee health and the state of the politically oppressed led her to join several other physicians in founding Physicians for Human Rights, which went on to share the Nobel Peace Prize. She remained active with PHR and with the Institute for Health Improvement for the remainder of her life. She had a gift that made strangers quickly pour out the most intimate details of their lives. All those around her had the sense that she cared deeply about them, and the reality is that she did. After living independently in Cambridge into her second century, she spent the last three years of her life at the Commons in Lincoln, receiving extraordinary care for which her family is most grateful. Even more impressive than her remarkable career was her intense and genuine interest in everyone she met. She is survived by her children Laurence Guttmacher and Alan Guttmacher, stepchildren Mark Eisenberg and Kathy Eisenberg, and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews, whom she adored. A Celebration of her Life will occur later this year. She requested that any contributions in her memory be made to Physicians for Human Rights at phr.org/donate-phr

View the online memorial for Carola Blitzman Guttmacher M.D. EISENBERG