The Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School community was profoundly saddened by the unexpected passing of Dr. Scott B. Lovitch, attending pathologist, on April 13, 2024. Dr. Lovitch was a dedicated educator, diagnostician, and mentor, and his loss has been felt deeply by all who knew him.
Dr. Lovitch graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College. He then enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, where he received his MD and PhD degrees, studying under the famed immunologist Emil Unanue. He entered the BWH Pathology Residency Program in 2007, followed by fellowship training in Hematopathology. Dr. Lovitch spent several years as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Arlene Sharpe's laboratory, studying the role of coinhibitory receptors in regulating T cell metabolism. At the same time, he began participating in teaching at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST). He was appointed as Instructor in Pathology at HMS in 2012 and promoted to Assistant Professor of Pathology in 2017.
As an associate pathologist at BWH, Dr. Lovitch attended on the hematopathology, hematology, and molecular pathology services, specializing in the diagnostic interpretation of blood, bone marrow, and lymph node specimens. He provided expert diagnostic support to clinical colleagues at both BWH and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In addition, he was a highly regarded educator of the residents and fellows within the department, who benefited from his natural gifts for teaching and mentoring.
Dr. Lovitch also had an extraordinarily wide-ranging educational role at HMS, through which he contributed to the teaching of virtually every medical student over the past decade. He served as principal instructor of the Human Pathology course for the HST program from 2011-14 and co-directed the Immunology, Microbiology, Pathology, and Human Systems Hematology courses until 2015, when they were replaced with several new courses. Dr. Lovitch played an integral role in writing the Pathology curriculum for these new courses and developed innovative case-based, flipped-classroom learning modules that incorporated molecular diagnostics and genomics alongside traditional histopathology. Subsequently, he took on many additional roles, including serving as the pathology leader of the Pathways Foundations Course and as a member of the core faculty in the Homeostasis I course; directing “Pathology of Human Disease”, a course designed for engineering and medical science graduate students; teaching a second course, “Human Physiology and Pathology”, for more senior graduate students; and advising medical students as a Senior Fellow of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Society as well as undergraduate students as a premedical tutor in Leverett House at Harvard College. Dr. Lovitch’s exceptional teaching was recognized by many awards, the most recent and prominent being the 2023 Bernard Lown Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Within the BWH Department of Pathology, Dr. Lovitch also served as an enthusiastic mentor and educator of medical students from around the country who participated in the BWH post-sophomore fellowship, an in-depth yearlong experience in clinical aspects of pathology designed to bring physicians-in-training into the field. In addition to overseeing post-sophomore fellows on his clinical services, Dr. Lovitch worked closely with several students to develop pathology education projects, resulting in presentations at national meetings and first-author publications. As a reflection of his devotion and commitment to the students of this program, the department has re-named the fellowship in his honor. The Scott B. Lovitch Post-Sophomore Fellowship in Pathology is a fitting tribute to an exceptional educator who was passionate about sparking excitement for pathology in the next general of physicians.
As the BWH Pathology community and beyond grieves the loss of Dr. Lovitch, we find comfort in the knowledge that he had a remarkable impact on a broad array of people at BWH and HMS: students, residents, fellows, physicians, and scientists alike, all of whom will carry on his legacy. If you are interested in supporting the Scott B. Lovitch Post-Sophomore Fellowship, please reach out to Rick Mitchell at rmitchell@partners.org.
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