A medical doctor, Fieldman was in his first year in medical school when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor — and given less than a year to live. But Fieldman not only lived out the year, he graduated from med school and dedicated his practice to improving doctor-patient relationships, helped by his own experiences on both sides of the bed — “A foot in each camp,” in his words.
“One day I was a person; the next day I was a brain tumor,” he said at his graduation. He spent his career helping to integrate different ways of treating illnesses. “When Western medicine gives you zero percent survival, you start exploring other options,” he once said, and spent 15 years doing such explorations until his brain tumor finally caught up with him: he died in Pittsfield, Mass, on June 1 at the age of 38.