Estate of Robert Kleiger, MD ’60

Robert Kleiger, MD ’60, championed women in medicine more than 40 years ago—long before it was common or even popular to do so.

When his two nieces attended his memorial in St. Louis in early 2022, they connected with female doctors who spoke with respect for Kleiger and his financial and professional assistance that gave their careers a trajectory they could not have imagined.

“He was probably one of the first male doctors who was into really supporting women and getting behind their research, funding them, and helping them,” says Susan Kushner, who is the daughter of Kleiger’s late sister. Kleiger, who never married, died Jan. 21, 2022, at age 87 of prostate cancer—one of the diseases for which he had provided generous research funding to one of his former students, who is still hoping to find a cure.

Kleiger, a professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, was a cardiologist widely known for his deep expertise in electrocardiography, the measurement and analysis of the heart’s electrical activity. A textbook he co-wrote on the subject, “Clinical Scalar Electrocardiography,” was first published in 1972 and is still in use today.

“He taught everything about the electrocardiogram . . . and his former students would be intimidated in his classes,” Kushner notes. “When Dr. Kleiger asked you a question, then that question led to another question and another question.”

His curiosity not only about medicine but about everyone and everything informed his life, so he was only too happy to make an unrestricted bequest of nearly $4.2 million to Harvard Medical School, giving HMS Dean George Q. Daley, AB ’82, MD ’91, PhD, the flexibility to direct resources wherever they are needed most.

When he wasn’t teaching or writing and revising textbooks, Kleiger was an enthusiastic ornithologist in search of the perfect bird photograph.

“I have gorgeous photographs he took of birds and flowers,” says his niece Nancy Wasserman. “He traveled the world photographing the species from Antarctica to China and Africa. I think he was curious and bright and read so much and really dove into any subject that he was into.”

Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Kleiger earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1956. He completed an internship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s) in Boston in 1961. He continued his training with a residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospital (now Barnes-Jewish) in St. Louis in 1963. He then completed two fellowships in cardiology—at the Harvard School of Public Health (now the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) in 1965 and Stanford University School of Medicine in 1969. A loyal giver to HMS for more than 40 years, he also served on his 60th Reunion committee.

When his nieces became closer to their uncle following the death of their parents seven years ago, they learned more about his standing as a patron in the St. Louis artistic community and his passion for birds and photography.

That passion extended to the cardiology care their father received toward the end of his life from Kleiger. “He always went the extra mile,” Kushner says, “Certainly when it came to anything medical.”