Shelley Orgel, M.D. 1928-2018

Shelley Orgel died on December 26, 2018. He had been unwell for two months, diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Those who know him best said that for some of the time he was ill he was able to continue to do those things he loved most, namely listen to music and to spend time with his beloved wife, Doris and his children who had come to visit him. Those who are close to him say that in his last weeks, though he endured difficulties breathing and moving, he did not want to burden those around him, which was characteristic of the way he was as a father and a friend. When he didn’t arrive for a longstanding study group he was in, people knew that something must be wrong.

Shelley Orgel was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1928. His father, Joseph, a literary scholar, named him for the poet Percy Shelley. Shelley Orgel grew up in Brooklyn, the elder of two children (he has a younger sister, who is still living). He left Brooklyn to attend Harvard College when he was sixteen years old. At Harvard, he studied pre-med, which is said to have been what his parents expected of him. He always had a questing mind and as a young man was politically radical. He met his future wife, Doris, who was studying at Radcliffe, at a protest.

He and Doris returned to New York after college and he went to NYU for medical school. But there is an interesting family story that was told about this: apparently, around the time he was graduating from college, his younger sister was also considering whether she could go to college. The parents were hesitant, seeing as she was a girl and would likely just get married. The story has it that Shelley told his parents that if she

wasn’t permitted to go to college, he would not pursue medical training either. With that the parents relented and allowed her to follow her plans.

Shelley and