Sharon Robin Kaufman

Sharon Robin Kaufman, 73, died peacefully in her home in San Anselmo, CA on April 2, 2022. Sharon was born at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco in 1948 to Dr. Bernard Kaufman, a person of note in the San Francisco medical and Jewish communities, and Shirley Kaufman, a world-renowned poet. After graduating from Lowell in 1966, Sharon received her undergraduate degree in Anthropology from UC Berkeley, followed by a master’s degree from the University of London. Sharon would become one of the first PhD candidates from a joint UCSF/ UC Berkeley program in the burgeoning field of Medical Anthropology. Her dissertation became her debut book, The Ageless Self (1986), which, after being reviewed positively on the front page of the Sunday edition of the New York Times Book Review, launched her distinguished career. Sharon was a brilliant writer of medical narrative following in the style of Oliver Sacks, authoring three more books – The Healer’s Tale (1993), …And a Time to Die (2005), and Ordinary Medicine (2015) – and countless published articles tackling such subjects as the changing culture of U.S. medicine, aging and end-of-life, and the medicalindustrial complex. Sharon was a Professor Emerita of Medical Anthropology at UCSF and Chair of the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine. She served on the Ethics Committee of UCSF Medical School. As part of her work, Dr. Kaufman (her professional title, which she insisted nobody use) flew to major cities on five continents to give standing room only lectures in some of the world’s largest university auditoriums. She mentored hundreds of students and influenced thousands of practitioners in the medical profession, and became widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts in her field.

Sharon’s vocational achievements were eclipsed only by her family life. In 1972, she married Seth Kaufman (no relation), a commercial real estate broker with midwestern charm, who wooed her by writing her a letter every day while she was studying in England. She didn’t reply every day, but in an apocryphal anecdote, she penned Seth the line “I love you more than chocolate itself”. Her daughter Sarah was born in 1978, and her son Jacob followed in 1981. While the family would make trips together to New York, Israel, France, and Italy, Sharon’s most treasured vacation memories were forged just a couple of hours north up the coast at Sea Ranch where the family spent 40 years’ worth of Thanksgiving and summer breaks counting starfish and collecting seashells. She loved nature; on any given weekend she could be found on the myriad hiking trails in Marin County. A perfect day for Sharon was walking around Lagunitas Lake or summiting Mt. Tam, accompanied by a friend or four with whom she would discuss life’s most fascinating mysteries, with a bar of dark chocolate in her hip pocket.

She died as she had lived: with dignity, class, and surrounded by loving family.

In addition to Seth, Sarah (husband Avrami), and Jacob (wife Marlese), Sharon is survived by her sisters Rabia van Hattum and Deborah Kaufman, her grandsons Benjamin (age 13) and Lev (age one), and a bevy of nieces, nephews, first cousins, second cousins, third cousins, and chosen family members, all of whom she deeply adored.

The family will be doing a private graveside service. If you would like to honor Sharon, please consider remembering her by donating to the Gay Becker and Sharon Kaufman Memorial Fund, UCSF Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Campus Box 0850, 490 Illinois St., Floor 7, San Francisco, CA 94143.