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Meet Our Donors - Philip M. Gottlieb, M.D.’35

Philip M. Gottlieb, M.D.’35, believes in giving credit where credit is due. In private practice in internal medicine and allergy for more than 40 years, he played a major role in persuading the American Medical Association to move allergy to its own section (he served as founding chair) and to include it as an independent field in the American Board of Medical Specialties.

Today, Gottlieb takes pride in the fact that allergy “gets its due.” But he’s still pushing for recognition of people and institutions that make important contributions. This time around, his focus is his alma mater.

“In all those years of practice, I kept thinking back to the fine training I had in medical school and my professors,” he says, citing Truman Schnabel Sr., I. S. Ravdin, and Charles C. Wolferth. “I just felt I ought to give back some token of what they did for me.” In January, he did – honoring the School of Medicine by establishing a charitable gift annuity.

Inspired by his three physician uncles, Gottlieb planned a career in medicine from the start, enrolling in Penn’s special seven-year undergraduate/medical degree program. “I did it just to save a year and get to work,” he says. A Simon Muhr scholarship paid his $400-persemester tuition. Gottlieb graduated Phi Beta Kappa and served as editor of the Class of ’35 Record.

His professional highlights include induction into Alpha Omega Alpha and teaching appointments at HUP and Philadelphia General Hospital. He served on two NIH consensus development committees and chaired one of them. He was a director of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology as well as president of the American College of Allergists and Immunologists. Following a heart attack in 1981, he sold his practice.

A frequent visitor to Penn, Gottlieb approves of the many changes he’s seen. His gift, he says, is also a form of thanks for the special status he enjoyed: “When you circulate around doctors in the country, you discover that the title ‘Penn graduate’ is very highly regarded.”

In addition to obtaining a generous income tax deduction, Gottlieb will receive a lifetime income stream from the charitable gift annuity. His planned gift is just one of the creative gift opportunities that would benefit both the School of Medicine and its alumni.