Trained as a lawyer, Zion was a criminal defense attorney in the 1950s, then an Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in the 1960s. But law practice apparently didn’t suit him: he quit and became a journalist, working as a legal reporter for the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and other publications.
He is best known for what happened in 1984, when his then 18-year-old daughter was admitted to a New York hospital. She was attended by two interns, and died shortly after receiving care. Zion and his wife sued, saying that the interns were too exhausted from their work schedules to give proper care. At the time, interns commonly worked 100-120 hours a week, sometimes 36 hours straight — without rest, if things were busy, and things were quite often busy in New York teaching hospitals.
Worse, supervising senior physicians often weren’t present at the hospitals to supervise. In 1989, the state instituted new rules limiting interns and residents to 80-hour work weeks, with shifts no longer than 24 hours. And, senior doctors supervising them were required to actually be present. A major teaching hospital accreditation council made similar standards national in 2003. Zion died August 2 from bladder cancer. He was 75.