Robert Dodd Pearson

Dr. Robert Dodd Pearson, prominent New York internist and Jackson native, died on Thursday, June 21, 2007, at his home at Ardsley-on-Hudson. He was 86 years of age.
Dr. Pearson was born in Jackson on September 23, 1920. He was the son of the late Coyt Pearson and Connie (Murphy) Pearson. He graduated with honors from Central High School in Jackson in 1939 and attended Millsaps College on a full academic scholarship. At Millsaps he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Social Fraternity, the Millsaps Singers and Alpha Epsilon Delta. He graduated with honors from Millsaps in 1943 with a Bachelor of Arts (B. A.) Degree.
Following his graduation from Millsaps, Dr. Pearson entered what was then the two year Medical School of the University of Mississippi then located on the Oxford Campus. He finished at the head of his class at the Ole Miss Medical School along with his friend Purves McLaurin and both thereafter transferred to the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia. Dr. Pearson graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School with a medical degree in 1946.
Following his graduation from medical school at Penn, Dr. Pearson served a rotating medical internship at the Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia. He also worked at the Camden General Hospital in New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. During his internship in Philadelphia, Dr. Pearson was privileged to work with some of Philadelphia's most outstanding physicians, including Dr. Everett Koop, who later served as Surgeon General of the United States. He completed his internship at the Presbyterian Hospital in June 1947.
In October 1947 he was ordered to active military service in the United States Army. His initial military assignment was to attend the U. S. Army's Medical Field Service School in San Antonio, Texas. Following graduation from the Medical Field Service School, he was assigned to the U. S. Army of Occupation's Tokyo Quartermaster Depot where he was in charge of a 24-bed dispensary. Following his promotion to Captain in 1948, he was assigned to the 49th Tokyo General Hospital as the Associate Director of the Department of Internal Medicine. During that period he was one of three, U. S. Army physicians assigned to provide medical care to Commanding General Douglas MacArthur and his staff and family as well as other American military personnel being evacuated to Japan from China and the Phillipines.
Dr. Pearson was honorably discharged from the Army in July 1949 following two years of active military service and returned to the U. S. where he began applying for residences in internal medicine. While awaiting acceptance to a residency program, he worked for a year in Jackson on the staff of the VA Hospital.
Dr. Pearson was accepted for a residency in internal medicine in 1950 at the Bronx VA Hospital in New York where he completed a three year residency program in 1953. While completing his residency in New York, he worked at various times at the New York Hospital, Bellevue, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Montifiore. While undergoing his residency he had the opportunity to work with some of the leading physicians in the U. S., including Dr.'s Dana Atchley, John Schwedel, Cecil Amberson, Oscar Auerbach, Sol Berson and Rosalyn Yalow, the latter two physicians having been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work with radioactive isotopes.
Following the conclusion of his residency in 1953, Dr. Pearson established his practice in internal medicine at Scarsdale, New York, in Westchester County. He became a Board certified internist in 1955. During a long and distinguished career in medicine, he served on the staffs of the White Plains Hospital, the Albert Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx (where he also served as a member of the faculty) and the Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, New York.
Dr. Pearson was elected an Associate of the American College of Physicians in 1956 and in 1961 was named a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (F.A.C.P.).
Dr. Pearson was an avid opera fan and a supporter through the years of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Beginning in 1975 he served as the physician on call for all live broadcast performances of "Live from the Met" which was one of the great joys of his life.
Dr. Pearson was preceded in death by his parents and his wife, the former Sylvia Roberts of Jackson. Many will recall Sylvia (Roberts) Pearson as the daughter of Professor J. L. Roberts who served for many years as the Principal of Central High School in Jackson.
He is survived by a daughter, Marchia (Pearson) Miller of Danville, California, and her husband, Clifton; a granddaughter, Kelly Elizabeth Miller of Berkeley, California; and a son, Robert Dodd Pearson, Jr., of New York City and his wife, May.
Dr. Pearson is interred in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery near Tarrytown, New York, alongside his wife Sylvia.