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On March 18, on a cruise to Mexico with his wife, Jean, Sam Safirstein died while playing bridge, the game he loved and of which he was an international master. I have known him as a student, a supervisee, a colleague, and a friend since he came to the American Institute of Psychoanalysis in 1953. He died as he lived, enjoying the life he earned as a refugee from his birthplace in Warsaw, as a doctor in the French and the British armies from 1940 to 1949, as a warm and ever-cheerful friend, as a dedicated physician and psychoanalyst.
For many years, he was a mainstay of the psychiatric service at the Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was chairman of the After Care Clinic and the coordinator of the OPD. Sam graduated from the University of Paris as a physician in 1939 on the eve of World War II and served as an officer. He completed his medical training in the United States and was certified as a psychoanalyst at the Institute in 1960.
Although Sam was an analyst in his private practice, his principal interests were original and richly informed because of his analytic knowledge. These are reflected in his many publications that have appeared in the journal of the Academy of Psychoanalysis, the journal of the Canadian Psychological Association, The Journal of Mt. Sinai Hospital, the N. Y. State journal of Medicine, and the Psychiatric Quarterly. In 1961 he was the recipient of the Gralnick Foundation Award. He brought to his work a broad and deep compassion that informs the best of our profession.
I am one of many who will miss Sam's silver grey head and ready smile as he strolled near his East Side office at midday. These words are addressed to his wife, and to the many friends and colleagues who were a cherished part of his life.