PAUL SORUM

1943 - 2025

SORUM, Paul Physician, Historian, and Single-Payer Medical System Advocate Dr. Paul Clay Sorum, a distinguished physician, scholar, and educator, and a beloved father and grandfather, died peacefully at home, with his family, on November 12, 2025, after a year of unsuccessful treatments for lymphoma. Paul was born in 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of C. Harvey Sorum, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin and Emma Louise Sorum. He spent his childhood in the Shorewood Hills home built by his father, and he was an avid tennis player: at the age of 12, he was the Wisconsin State Champion in his age group, figure skater, and student. He went to Stanford University for his undergraduate education, trying to decide between pursuing a career in medicine or in history. He graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors and received a degree "with great distinction" in History in 1965. Paul went from Stanford to Harvard to pursue a Ph.D. in History, which he received in 1972. While at Harvard in a summer German class, he met his future wife, Christina Elliott, who was finishing her undergraduate degree in Classics at Wellesley College. In 1968, he and Christie married, spending 1969 in Paris, so that Paul could interview French intellectuals, including Jean Paul Sartre, for his dissertation on the role of intellectuals in France in the post-World War II process of decolonization. This material later became a book, "Intellectuals and Decolonization in France," published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1977. Paul began as an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina. In 1976, he and Christie had their only child, Eve Christina. Paul recalled typing the index to his book with one hand, while rocking infant Eve in a swing with the other. The same year, Paul decided to switch careers, he entered medical school at the University of North Carolina, from which he graduated with Alpha Omega Alpha honors in 1980, and he began to pursue a dual specialty with two residencies, in both internal medicine and pediatrics. Upon their move to Schenectady, NY, when Christie was recruited to be Chair of the Classics Department at Union College, Paul joined the Albany Medical College to finish his med-peds residency training, then joining the faculty of the Department in the Division of Medicine-Pediatrics, as an instructor in 1984. He continued his career at Albany Medical College over the next four decades, where colleagues described his "meteoric rise through the academic ranks of this institution," with promotion to assistant professor (1986), associate professor (1991), and professor (2000). Paul was Program Director for the Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency from 1984 to 1997, mentoring a generation of medicine-pediatrics trainees, along with countless other medical students and residents. Not only a passionate and committed teacher, Paul was also a beloved doctor: the kind of physician who made house calls when needed and who often cared for the whole family, from infants to grandparents. Friends from all over the world would turn to him for advice and support, and his diagnostic skill proved transformative for many. Even after retirement to a condo on the same street as his daughter's family in Jamaica Plain, MA, in 2020, Paul continued teaching, advising, and publishing. A prolific scholar, eloquent writer, and meticulous editor, Paul published over 130 articles, often focused on issues of health-related judgment and decision-making, and often in collaboration with health psychologists in France and Canada. He co-founded and coordinated the multi-disciplinary Capital District Medical Decision Making Interest Group (later the Health Care Value Forum), started the Capital District chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program and served as President of the Hudson Valley district of the NY American College of Physicians. His range and interests were global: he wrote on health care in France, taught evidence-based medicine to students in Burkina Faso and was on the medical advisory boards of the Engeye rural clinic in Uganda, at which he worked three times, most recently in February 2020, and of Noora Health in India. For his clinical, activist, and community work, Paul received numerous awards and accolades, including the "Activist of the Year" award from the Physicians for a National Health Program (2007), membership in the Physicians Academy by the Capital District Physicians Health Plan (2017), and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Department of Medicine at Albany Medical College (2018). Paul's clinical and scholarly impact is only outmatched by the impact of his generosity and unending intellectual curiosity on all with whom he had contact. He spent the past five years continuing his research and writing, traveling avidly, cooking complicated dinners for friends and family, and spending long hours driving his grandchildren to their sports activities, working with them on math problems, and taking them on trips. He is survived and deeply missed by his daughter, Eve Sorum, son-in-law, John Fulton; and grandchildren, Zoë and August; as well as his in-laws, Jeff and Marilyn Elliott; and nieces and nephews, Edith Elliott Queeny, Jack Elliott, Alan Mills, David Mills, and Alison Thornbrugh. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Dr. Paul Sorum's name to Albany Medical College, c/o Albany Medical Center Foundation, 43 New Scotland Ave., MC-119, Albany, NY 12208 or via online donation or to the Engeye Clinic in Uganda, https://www.engeye.org/our-programs/health A Memorial will be held in Boston on January 3.

View the online memorial for Paul SORUM