He served a one-year internship and then completed a two-year cardiology fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.

[1][2] In 1956, Gorlin returned to the Brigham and faculty at Harvard Medical School where he established his own research laboratory and cardiology fellowship training program.

While at Mount Sinai, Gorlin added seventeen subspecialty divisions and helped plan the Guggenheim Pavilion (new patient care facility).

[1][2][4] Working with his engineer father, they developed the Gorlin formula, an indirect method for calculating the orifice area of cardiac valves or congenital heart chamber defects.

He completed studies integrating the clinical findings in coronary artery disease with the anatomy, physiology, and metabolism of the disorder.

[1][2][3] Gorlin was one of the first to describe the relationship between diminished heart pumping function (left ventricle ejection fraction) and increased mortality.

In addition, he was one of the first to recognize that significant left main coronary artery disease was a dire prognostic factor.

[citation needed] Gorlin died at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on October 16, 1997, at 71 years of age due to pancreatic cancer.