Dr. Stephen Rockower discovered an interest in orthopaedics when the woman he’d later marry fell and tore her ACL.
His wife’s surgeon was a friend of her family’s, so Rockower, a first-year student in medical school, was invited to watch the procedure. That experience led to a career path. After working with the surgeon that summer and writing an article with him, Rockower realized, “This orthopaedic stuff was a lot of fun.”
The Bethesda resident and retired physician has since served as president of MedChi, The Maryland State Medical Society, a role in which he fought to preserve Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act. In May, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Montgomery County Medical Society, which is establishing a Stephen J. Rockower, M.D. Annual Leadership in Advocacy Lectureship as part of the award.
Rockower has long been involved with Temple Micah in Washington, D.C., and the Jewish Council for the Aging. He is currently a volunteer docent at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, having retired in 2020 from his role as a physician.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I grew up in a Conservative synagogue, Beth Sholom outside of Philadelphia. This was the synagogue that was designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright, so it sort of looks like Mount Sinai. I was bar mitzvahed there, went to Hebrew school [and] didn’t do a whole lot after my bar mitzvah. Once I got married in Philadelphia to a girl who went to my high school, we moved down here and got involved with Temple Micah once we had children. In Capitol Hill where we were living, they have a babysitting co-op among all the parents. One of the other families said, “You guys are good for Temple Micah,” and they roped us in, and here we are 40-some years later.
Have you always wanted to go into medicine?
Not exactly. I knew I was going to do something in the sciences. I started college not knowing exactly what I was going to be majoring in. The premed students were taking chemistry; the science, math and physics majors were taking physics freshman year. I said, “Well, I’ll take them both.” Later in my college career, I realized that I wanted to sort of be my own boss. If I was a physics major or chemistry major, I’d be working for somebody, but as a physician, I could basically work for myself, which is what I did.
How did you earn the Lifetime Achievement Award?
The Lifetime Achievement Award is relative to my advocacy for physicians and for patients. All I’ve done through the years working with the medical societies, both the county medical society and the state medical society, is advocate for things that will help physicians take care of patients. I’ve been doing that for 30 [or] 40 years. I was down in Annapolis all day yesterday at a board meeting; I’m on a state board for prescription drug affordability, and we’re trying to find ways to limit the amount of money that the state and patients pay for various prescription drugs. We’re getting pushback from insurance companies and manufacturers, but by reducing the costs to patients, that’s helpful to patients.
How do your Jewish values inform your medical work and advocacy?
You always want to leave the world better than where you started. Tikkun olam, repairing the world, it’s what I did. My father was always somebody who was doing things, giving of himself, and that’s what I did. One of the things that I’m always fighting about is getting other physicians to also spend time doing this. So many physicians have their blinders on, and they’re only seeing their patient in front of them and then going home, and they don’t see the outside world of what’s going on. You need advocates to do that — tikkun olam.
What do you like about Temple Micah?
Temple Micah is just a very special place. The catchword of Temple Micah is “If it ain’t broke, break it.” They’re always looking at new ways to express your Judaism, and our longtime Rabbi Danny Zemel, who just retired, was always at the forefront of Jewish thought. To him, Reform is a verb. That spoke to me and my wife.
[At] many other synagogues, when somebody gives a bunch of money, you get a plaque on the wall or something like that. We have none of that [at Temple Micah]. I can give them $50 million and they’ll say, ‘Thanks,’ but I won’t get my name on the wall. … That’s typical Temple Micah — you’re doing [philanthropy] for the Judaism, not for your name.
You’ve been involved in the local Jewish community for decades on top of your medical profession. Why stay involved?
Because it’s the thing to do. My wife was doing it and “shalom bayit,” I help out.
