In Memory of Daniel F. Roses, MD, Beloved Professor and Dedicated Board Member
The Board of Directors of The Bellevue Association mourns the passing of our fellow Board member, Daniel F. Roses, MD. Dr. Roses was the Jules Leonard Whitehill Professor of Surgery and Oncology, in the Department of Surgery at NYU-Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Roses died on July 26, 2025.
Dr. Roses was born in the Bronx. After attending Columbia as an undergraduate, Dr. Roses entered the NYU School of Medicine in 1965. With the exception of two years of active duty in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant Commander in the Medical Corps, Dr. Roses spent his career, more than fifty years, practicing at Bellevue and NYU.
Dr. Roses was dedicated to Bellevue Hospital. He always remembered his first encounter with Bellevue and its impact on his career. To Dr. Roses, Bellevue is a dominant presence in medical education because, as he explained, “It was and remains a unique center for medicine, dedicated to caring for the broadest spectrum of patients in New York and around the world.”
From the beginning, Dr. Roses’ mentors at Bellevue encouraged him to pursue a career with clinical responsibility, as well as research and teaching, all of which laid the foundation for his surgical practice. He became a professor of surgery at the age of 39. Dr. Roses credited his experiences at Bellevue as a pivotal component of demonstrating the importance of teaching in clinical practice and believed that Bellevue remains an invaluable resource for medical education.
In addition to the many national and international honors that he has received, Dr. Roses was the author and co-author of more than 275 published manuscripts in the medical literature, as well as two major textbooks—Breast Cancer and Diagnosis and Management of Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma. As an educator, he has received the Great Teacher Award from New York University and is a five-time recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award from NYU School of Medicine. He is also the recipient of Solomon A. Bergson Alumni Achievement Award in Clinical Science from NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Among scores of other achievements, Dr. Roses also served as a principal investigator for the National Cancer Institute’s Multicenter Selective Lymphadenectomy Trial, which established sentinel node biopsy as the standard of care for malignant melanoma and breast cancer. He also founded the Shifrin-Myers Breast Cancer Discovery Fund to provide funding for pilot projects in breast cancer research.
Dr. Roses was very dedicated to NYU Medical School and Bellevue Hospital. He served as the president of the Alumni Association of both institutions.
But Dr. Roses had an even more important connection with Bellevue than his professional home, because Bellevue was where he met his wife Helene when she was a 20-year-old nurse in obstetrics. For fifty-seven years, they raised a family and worked together. The Roses have two sons and a daughter and six grandchildren.
On a personal note, I first met Dr. Roses through my parents, Dr. Saul and Doris Farber. They were great friends and had something of a mutual admiration society. Whenever I spent with Dr. Roses, he was unfailingly warm, generous, and upbeat. He was fiercely devoted to his patients and to their care and was a model of what a doctor should be.
Dr. Roses was very proud of the history of Bellevue and being part of that legacy for over 50 years. He was also an accomplished historian of Bellevue and often gave lectures and shared his knowledge with other. His time at Bellevue was an essential part of his career’s trajectory. “It is often said that to practice good medicine one has to teach good medicine,” he explained. “And whatever I have done I owe a great deal to Bellevue as a center of scientific medicine, public health, and above all, medical education.”
The Bellevue Association had the privilege of honoring Dr. Roses last year at our Gala in September 2024 for his devotion to Bellevue Hospital and the ideals it represents. Dr. Roses contributed so much to Bellevue Hospital, and to The Bellevue Association and was an inspiration to the countless doctors he trained. He a was a model of what a physician can and should be, and will be sorely missed.
The members of the Board of Directors of The Bellevue Association send our condolences and our love to his family. May his memory be for a blessing.
