Mary Ellen Wohl
Dr. Mary Ellen Wohl, known internationally for her research in pediatric pulmonary diseases, passed away at age 77 in October, 2010 at Rogerson House in Jamaica Plain. Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, she had served as Chief of the Division of Respiratory Diseases at Children’s Hospital Boston for 22 years and Director of its Cystic Fibrosis Center for 19 years, saving and touching countless lives along the way. She was a pioneer in the development of the discipline known today as pediatric pulmonary medicine. A Harvard trained physiologist who began her career at Children’s Hospital Boston in the early 60′s, she experimented with lung volume measuring devices that followed her “hunch” that pulmonary medicine as it was then defined for adults, might well be something that could be applied to children. Mary Ellen Beck was born into a medical family in Cleveland. Her father, Claude Beck, on the faculty...