Health
HAVE ALREADY
PLAYED AN
IMPORTANT ROLE
IN MEDICINE.
Jonas Salk
Inventor of polio vaccine
Cutting Edge
A West Coast import is
developing a world-class
neurosurgery department
at Henry Ford Hospital.
MEGAN SWOYER
Special to The Jewish News
I
t was one of those pretty Cali-
fornia days. Dr. Mark Rosen-
blum was riding his bike along
the hills of San Francisco and
his daughter was coasting alongside
him.
Then she lost control.
"I went after her and I ended up
falling off my bike," recalls Rosen-
blum. He lost consciousness, under-
went several X-rays at a nearby hospi-
tal and woke up thanking God that he
wasn't hurt. "It could have been a long
road," says Rosenblum. "The vulnera-
bility of all of us is, well, fascinating."
It's that type of fascination with
hundreds of gravely-ill patients an
extra dose of hope.
"The people who come to us are
here because of significant diseases,
such as brain tumors, seizures, spine
problems where they can't walk,
Parkinson's, stroke, epilepsy. They're in
distress," says Rosenblum, 54. "When
it comes to treatments and diagnos-
tics, we're on the cutting edge. We
have to be."
Rosenblum, who lives in West
Bloomfield with his wife, Pam, came
to Detroit after living in San Francisco
for 20 years. A professor of neuro-
surgery at the University of California
- San Francisco, he was invited to
Henry Ford to develop and run the
neurosurgery department. "When you
least expect you're going to move,
that's when it happens," he says.
But he's glad he pulled up his Cali-
fornia stakes. Besides "loving the peo-
ple of the Midwest and hating the
winters," Rosenblum says there's a
wonderful quality of life in Michigan.
Running his department like a suc-
Anna Freud
Pioneer in child psychology
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Hospital Guild is making its own
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Hospital programs including Tay-
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Sachs screening and cardiology
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research. But we couldn't do any of
They also sponsor programs which
this without our Guild members and
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and Service with Love, as well as offer
a difference, call (313) 493-5300.
•
•
Photo by Krista Husa
THESE TWO PEOPLE
Dr. Mark Rosenblum: Fascinated with the brain.
a
Wayne State University
Sinai
Hospital
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life, the human body and the brain
that has driven Rosenblum, who was
named chairman of the department of
neurosurgery at Henry Ford Hospital
five years ago, to help create one of
the Midwest's most advanced neuro-
surgery departments.
From the research laboratories in
the basement of the hospital and the
weekly tumor board meetings to the
internship program, the operating
tables and his patients' bedsides,
Rosenblum's department — which
treats about 12,000 patients per year
is continuously evolving and giving
—
cessful business, one of Rosenblum's
earliest initiatives was to bring in some
outside experts. "From four neurosur-
geons, we now have nine," he says,
plus a neurologist" and research
grants totaling more than $2 million.
"
He, then developed within the
department a "neuroscience institute,"
a
one of only a handful in the country.
It "combines the administrative struc-
ture and clinicians in the programs in
neurosurgery and neurology so that if
we work together, we get better results
than if we work alone."
For example, patients with epilepsy
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