Seymour Cohen

1936 - 2025

Seymour Cohen
07/09/1936 - 02/27/2025
Seymour Ira Cohen, known by his loved ones as Sy, was born in 1936, and grew up in Chicago's Lawndale district. Sy was a lifelong learner who used his expansive knowledge to help others in meaningful and enduring ways. Encouraged by his high school teachers, Sy first studied pharmacology at the University of Illinois, and became the head pharmacist at Sargent Drugs in Wilmette. Sy loved interacting with his customers about their medical issues. Through this work, Sy realized that the study of medicine was where he belonged.
In 1963, Sy received his MD degree from the University of Illinois School of Medicine. He then travelled cross-country to do his internship at the University of California, San Francisco, where many of his fellow interns became his treasured friends. Beginning a history of civil service, Sy joined the U.S. Army and served in a MASH unit in Korea. Then, after obtaining a Masters degree in epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the California Department of Epidemiology where he studied and published numerous articles on emerging public health issues.
Sy found another way to help people through psychiatry, graduating from the UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatry Residency in 1973 and becoming boarded in Psychiatry and Neurology. He then joined the City of San Francisco's Mental Health Clinical program, later going into private practice. Sy was a frequent volunteer physician at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, and during his time there, educated legislators about the growing dangers of street drugs. Sy constantly read scientific articles and further studied molecular biology at UCSF. He shared his extraordinary knowledge for the benefit of the greater medical community and provided special expertise on important matters, such as preventing adverse prescription drug interactions in patients.
In his free time, Sy loved to ski, ride his bike, travel the world with his friends and family, and enjoy good restaurants and movies. Sy loved the SF Giants, the SF 49ers, and the Golden State Warriors, and he read hundreds of books. Sy could converse on innumerable subjects and always found a way to bring laughter to the conversation. Sy was greatly loved by all of his relatives and friends. Sy's friends became his family. The children of many of his wonderful friends knew him as Uncle Sy. Sy was a mentor, advisor and trusted confidant to them. Those who visited him in San Francisco were welcomed to stay with him in his condo with a panoramic view of the SF Bay. Sy is survived by many loving relatives across the country. Sy donated generously to a multitude of charities and causes and made our world a better place. Memorial tributes in honor of the beloved Seymour Ira Cohen may be made to your favorite charity.