Nathan Kaufman, received his training in his native Canada as well as in the United States and subsequently worked in both countries. His B.Sc. from McGill University in Montreal - where he was named the gold medalist in biology - preceded his entrance into medical school, also at McGill. He recalls the pride of his parents - immigrants from Czarist Russia (his mother from Latvia, his father from the Ukraine) - as he, his brother and sister each attended a prestigious university that in those years had a strict quota on the number of Jewish students who were admitted. In the summer of his last year of school, he volunteered in the Department of Pathology. He still remembers the first autopsy for which he was responsible - a case of multiple myeloma - and the meticulous attention to detail expected by the supervising professor.

In 1942, after a year of rotating internships at Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital, he joined the Canadian army. As the Regimental Medical Officer for a tank battalion (and, later, in charge of a section of the Light Field Ambulance), he landed in France shortly after the Juno beachhead had been secured and served in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. He was awarded the military M.B.E. Member of the British Empire. Nathan recalls the moment and the unlikely place during the war when he decided to pursue a career in pathology: It was a dark, rainy, cold, miserable night in Germany. Riding in his jeep, he encountered two tanks returning to base for repairs. One was carrying a dead comrade on its deck, the other a deer killed in the same shelling - the former being brought back for burial, the latter for a meal shared with fellow soldiers. This strange sight evoked thoughts about a world gone wrong.

Czarist Russia (his mother from Latvia, his father from the Ukraine) as he, his brother and sister each attended a prestigious university that in those years had a strict quota on the number of Jewish students who were admitted. In the summer of his last year of school, he volunteered in the Department of Pathology. He still remembers the first autopsy for which he was responsible a case of multiple myeloma and the meticulous attention to detail expected by the supervising professor.

In 1942, after a year of rotating internships at Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital, he joined the Canadian army. As the Regimental Medical Officer for a tank battalion (and, later, in charge of a section of the Light Field Ambulance), he landed in France shortly after the Juno beachhead had been secured and served in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. He was awarded the military M.B.E. Member of the British Empire. Nathan recalls the moment and the unlikely place during the war when he decided to pursue a career in pathology: It was a dark, rainy, cold, miserable night in Germany. Riding in his jeep, he encountered two tanks returning to base for repairs. One was carrying a dead comrade on its deck, the other a deer killed in the same shelling the former being brought back for burial, the latter for a meal shared with fellow soldiers. This strange sight evoked thoughts about a world gone wrong.

Nathan found himself hoping for a saner, quieter, and more intellectually-demanding existence when the war was over. It was in this setting he made such an important life decision. It was one he never regretted.

After the war, he resumed his post-graduate training, first at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital (where he met his future wife, Rita Friendly) and then at the Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital in Ohio, a teaching hospital of Case-Western Reserve University. He was later appointed to the staff of the hospital and to the faculty of the medical school.

In 1960, he and Rita, with their five children in tow, moved to Durham, North Carolina to accept a faculty appointment at Duke University. By the end of that decade, he would return to Canada to take up an appointment as Head of the Department of Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and Pathologist-in-Chief at Kingston General Hospital. While at Queen's, he established the Cancer Research Laboratory, further expanding the research program in a department that already had a strong research base. In those years, his research interests centered on iron absorption and metabolism.

In Canada he also served on many committees and task forces of the Ontario Council of Health. He was appointed to the Medical Research Council of Canada, serving on its executive and various committees. He served on the grants committee of the National Cancer Institute of Canada and on the committee of Examinations of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

He is a member of the major pathology societies in the US and Canada, recognizing that each has a unique role. However, since becoming a member of the International Association of Medical Museums in 1949 he made this organization his major interest. He witnessed the evolution of the IAMM into the International Academy of Pathology and its divisions, and eventually served as its president. His involvement and participation was mainly focused on the United States - Canadian Division of the IAP where he served on the education and the finance committees and eventually was elected its president.

In 1979, he became its first full-time Secretary Treasurer, establishing the secretariat with a permanent location and adequate space for a growing organization and supervising the construction of a free-standing office building. He oversaw the establishment of a constitution and bylaws, and its separate incorporation as the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (while maintaining its close ties with the IAP as its largest division.) He established procedures and terms of reference for its committees, and developed objectives and guidelines to satisfy the increasingly stringent requirements for ACCME accreditation. He encouraged association with the smaller subspeciality societies and established procedures for their involvement at the annual meeting as Companion Societies so that their offerings would be accepted for CME credits under the aegis of the USCAP. He instituted the Diagnostic Pathology summer review courses as well as the Timely Topics lectures, and he established the yearly distribution of educational materials from the annual meeting to those divisions of the IAP where such materials were not available. However, the key to many of the successes of the USCAP was his appointment of a small, highly skilled, dedicated and friendly staff and the strong support, cooperation and constructive input from various Councils during his tenure.

He was the founding Associate Editor of Laboratory Investigations and, later, served as its Editor. He was the founding Editor of Modern Pathology. He was also the series editor of the USCAP Monographs based on the long courses.

Among the honors he has received were the Duke Distinguished Alumnus Award, the F.K. Mostofi Distinguished Service Award, the IAP Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to International Pathology, the naming of the Timely Topics annual lecture as the Nathan Kaufman Timely Topics Lecture, and the Nathan Kaufman Lectureship, established by the Department of Pathology at Queen’s University for an annual lecture in that department.

He takes particular pleasure in the successes of his students, trainees and young faculty members whom he mentored and supported.

Dr. Kaufman considers this Distinguished Pathologist Award as something very special, crowning a long, satisfying, and rewarding career as an academic and practicing pathologist who was also given the opportunity and privilege to serve the pathology community through the International Academy of Pathology.

WHAT USCAP/IAP LEADERS SAY ABOUT NATE KAUFMAN:

David Hardwick:
In the history of a few fortunate organizations there are some rare persons whose insights and actions resonate as unique and stellar, and lead to outstanding success. Nate Kaufman is such a person, and we should all be delighted to have been graced with the opportunity to work with him. The USCAP Distinguished Pathologist Award is a well deserved acknowledgment.

David M. Robertson:
I first met Nathan Kaufman in 1961 while a postgraduate student at Duke University and recognized him as a superb academic pathologist and and an excellent administrator. I was delighted when he was appointed Head of the Department at Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario in 1967 an appointment he held until 1979. During his tenure he actively encouraged his staff to the highest standards of excellence and scholarship. His proudest achievement was to obtain funding from the National Cancer Institute of Canada to set up a research unit within the Department of Pathology. In 1994 he returned to Kingston to be near where some of his family and friends live. His beloved wife Rita died in 2006.