A Passion for Pathology

While searching for a career path, Dr. Zadok Ruben entered three phrases into a “puzzle solver”: love of biology and medicine, animal husbandry, and independent profession. The answer that appeared was Veterinary Medicine. Granted, it was not a traditional method to determine a career choice, but fitting method considering this veterinarian’s non-traditional story. Born in Baghdad, Dr. Ruben’s family moved to Israel when he was 9. Israel didn’t have a veterinary school at that time, so he applied to ISU and was accepted as pre-vet student and later into the veterinary school. It was during his first course in pathology as a second-year student that he discovered a passion for pathology, and later toxicological and pharmaceutical pathology. “When I was planning to become a veterinarian, I had no knowledge of pathology, laboratory animal medicine, or toxicology. I anticipated that I would become the “Galilean James Herriot.” After a career in the pharmaceutical industry as a toxicological pathologist, Dr. Ruben formed his own consulting firm which offers services ranging from bench pathology/toxicology to drug discovery, product safety assessment and regulatory medicines. Last year he was featured in The Scope, a publication of The Society of Toxicologic Pathology, and recently elected as a Fellow in the International Academy of Toxicologic Pathology. He may be contacted at zruben@patoximed.com.