Founding Physician

Marcus Sugarman has practiced at Sinai since its Day One.

JULIE WIENER
Staff Writer

I

n the first months of 1953,
when Sinai Hospital had just
opened, Dr. Marcus Sugarman
spent a lot of nights in the
Outer Drive facility.
"Sinai was completed in January, but
they didn't have interns for the first six
months so the attending physicians took
turns manning the emergency room
from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.," recalled
Sugarman, a doctor of internal medicine.
Almost half a century later, Sinai
will once again have no interns, as the
Detroit hospital is expected to close
for good in the coming months. And
Sugarman — who has been admitting
patients there since Day One — is
very upset.
In his 88 years, Sugarman has wit-
nessed a lot of history, from the senti-
mental to the monumental. He was in
the last class to graduate from Central
High School's old building, now
Wayne State University's "Old Main."
In the 1930s, when he graduated from
Wayne's medical school, a time when
discrimination against Jewish doctors
was widespread, he was lucky to have
a sympathetic dean.
"When I graduated from medical
school, the dean helped all the Jewish
students get internships at Detroit
Receiving Hospital," he said, in an

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2/26
1999

10 Detroit Jewish News

interview earlier this week at his office
There's less personal contact and you
in Sinai's Hechtman building in
have to get the HMO's okay before you
Bingham Farms. We were happy just
can send people to specialists."
to get a hospital."
Recently, he's watched many of his
Months after marrying in 1941, he
colleagues leave Sinai or not have their
was sent to Europe for three years on
contracts renewed by DMC.
the front lines of World War II.
Throughout it all, he's adjusted.
Shortly after liberation, he visited Nazi
But moving to Grace is a change he
is dreading.
concentration camps and saw emaciat-
ed survivors firsthand.
"Sinai was my home,"
A few years later,
he
said. "Everybody knew
Above:
me
at Sinai — not just
Sugarman saw Detroit's
Dr. Marcus Sugarman:
the doctors. The non-
Jewish hospital become a
"Sinai was my home."
medical staff knew me,
reality, and has been there
the clerks knew me. I
ever since. He has
knew where everything was. The girls
enjoyed the good times — he describes
all knew me in admitting, endoscopic,
the heyday from 1955-60 as a home-
the emergency room. If I went to Grace
coming of sorts, both for him and his
I'd
be a stranger."
patients — and he weathered the more
Nonetheless,
Sugarman — who
difficult periods: the financial crises, the
insists
his
number
of years describes
patients unsure whether they still felt
him "chronologically, not physiological-
comfortable going to a city hospital,
ly" — is not ready to retire. He boasts
having to transfer regular patients to
that friends tell him he hasn't aged in
Sinai from the suburban hospitals
20 years and takes pride in his
where 911 dispatchers had sent them.
wardrobe,
joking that he spends two
While many of his peers retired,
hours
each
morning selecting which of
Sugarman stayed on to see the health
his 200 bow ties he will wear. He has
care field, once populated with private
almost two years left on his DMC con-
practices and independent hospitals,
tract and hopes to renew when it's up.
fall under the influence of cost-con-
"I'm happily married because I'm
scious managed care and corporate net-
working,"
he explained. "If the hus-
works like the Detroit Medical Center.
band
is
around
all the time, he gets to
"When I had my own practice, the
be
a
pain
in
the
neck for his wife."
patients were greeted by name," he said.
He
can
be
a
bit
cantankerous —
"Now they're asked if they've signed in
responding
sharply
to interruptions from
and if their insurance is the same .,.
office staff, for example — but, as he tells

it, kvetching can be a mark of comfort.
He noted fondly that Jewish patients
complained more at Sinai than they did
at other hospitals, not because they were
dissatisfied with the care but because
they felt comfortable speaking up. "If
something wasn't right at Sinai you'd
complain, whereas at Harper you'd just
absorb it."
Even if they complained, Sugarman
has always felt strongly about his
patients. He recalls rarely eating din-
ner with his children because he had
to make house calls after work and "I
couldn't relax and enjoy the meal until
I'd seen my patients.
"Even now, I rarely eat lunch when
I'm at the office. I can't enjoy a meal
when I'm worrying about my patients.'
Now with his patients, most of
whom are elderly, asking him about the
future of Sinai and telling him "they're
not too happy about Grace," Sugarman
is doing a lot of worrying. "Thank God
none of them are in the hospital right
now, but that can change," he said.
Although he complains that he's
too old to switch hospitals, Sugarman
is quietly starting to prepare for the
move down Outer Drive. He drove by
Grace last week to check out the doc-
tors' parking lot, the entrance and the
emergency room.
"I was in there when it was Mount
Carmel, but I haven't been there often,"
he said. "I guess if I send my patients to
Grace I'll get used to it." I I

