PROFILE

A Lot Of Serendipity

Beaumont Children's Hospital physician-in-chief eyes growth of staff.

Ilene Wolff

Special to the Jewish News

T

o some, Serendipity is an ice
cream shop in Manhattan. To
others, it's a 2001 movie. But for
Dr. Jeffrey Maisels, it was a career starter.
Maisels was a 30-year-old postgraduate
fellow in 1967 at Harvard Medical School
when he and the fellowship director met
to pick a research project for him.
"I thought I might like to do something
on nutrition," the young pediatric neona-
tologist told his director. Unfortunately,
there was no faculty member to sponsor
and oversee research on nutrition.
"How about jaundice?" asked the director.
Thirty-two years later, Maisels is a
world-renowned specialist in jaundice in
neonates (newborns).
He's also physician-in-chief of
Beaumont Children's Hospital and medi-
cal director of pediatric services for Royal
Oak-based Beaumont Hospitals. He will
chair the department of pediatrics at
the new Oakland University William
Beaumont School of Medicine. He previ-
ously completed military service at the
Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
Washington and served on the faculty of
the Pennsylvania State University College
of Medicine in Hershey, Pa.
Maisels is leading a study on a drug to
block production of bilirubin, a substance
in the body that can lead to jaundice. He
designed a method for measuring the rate
of carbon monoxide production in new-
borns and has done extensive studies on
a technique for measuring bilirubin in the
skin — two important steps in diagnosing
jaundice.
He has lectured on the topic of neonatal
jaundice to other medical professionals
around the world. He recently published
a book on the subject and has been pub-
lished in top-of-the-line medical jour-
nals such as the New England Journal of
Medicine and Pediatrics (on whose edito-
rial board he serves).

A Serendipitous Life

Maisels smiles at the recollection of his
meeting with the fellowship director and
the seemingly random nature of one's path
in life.
"It's a lot of serendipity," he says.
What was not serendipitous for Maisels

was his decision to leave his birthplace of
Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1965. "It
was the peak of apartheid," he says.
His family was solidly anti-apartheid.
In fact, his attorney father, Israel Aaron
Maisels, successfully defended Nelson
Mandela and 156 other defendants in
South Africa's notorious Treason Trial,
which ended in 1961. Mandela was subse-
quently imprisoned on other charges.
His father is an obvious source of pride for
Maisels, who reaches into his desk drawer
during an interview to pull out a folder con-
taining news clips and a copy of a handwrit-
ten letter from Mandela to the elder Maisels.
"I am very proud of him," says Maisels.
"He was a wonderful many"
The elder Maisels had a long-lived
career defending clients and as a judge. He
retired a week after his 87th birthday.

Stephanie

Bauer, R.N.,

takes the

temperature

of an infant

in the neona-

tal intensive

care unit at

Boon To The Pediatric Unit

Beaumont

Longtime careers seem to run in the
Maisels family.
Beaumont's Maisels is 71. He's been chair-
man of pediatrics at the Royal Oak hospital
since 1986 and shows no indication of hang-
ing up his lab coat any time soon.
"He's very good with the families, very
gracious:' says Ellen Sneider, R.N., admin-
istrative nurse manager of the pediatric
and pediatric intensive care units. "He's
also always been very supportive of things
we've done on the unit."
Maisels, a longtime member of
Beaumont's Art Committee, was instrumen-
tal, with his wife, Carol, in getting much of
the colorful artwork on the pediatric unit.
Recently, he was appointed the top
doctor for Beaumont Children's Hospital,
overseeing more than 200 pediatricians

Hospital,

Royal Oak,

as Jeffrey

Maisels, M.D.,

watches.

in 36 medical and surgical subspecialties
and 112 hospital beds for children. It was
under his leadership that Beaumont was
accepted for membership by the National
Association of Children's Hospitals and
Related Institutions in 2008 as a "children's
hospital within a hospital."
"He put the pieces together — sub-
specialists, systems, etc. — to bring this
to fruition:' says Michael Rolnick, Ph.D.,

Name: M. Jeffrey Maisels, M.D.
Home: Bloomfield Hills
Family: Wife, Carol; daughters, Lisa (deceased),

Gabrielle and Amanda; son, James
Synagogue: Adat Shalom Synagogue, Farmington Hills
Military Service: Lt. Col., Army Medical Corps
Honors: Douglas K. Richardson Award, Society for
Pediatric Research for lifetime contributions to pediat-
ric research; Virginia Apgar Award, Perinatal Section,
American Academy of Pediatrics
Hobbies: nationally ranked squash player in South Africa; Michigan state
squash champion in 50 and 55+ categories; runnerup in U.S. national squash
championships in 65+ category; collecting art; cantorial music; guitar and piano

director of speech and language pathology
for Beaumont Hospitals.
Beaumont Children's Hospital will be
the primary pediatric teaching hospital of
the Oakland University William Beaumont
School of Medicine.
"I'd like to stay long enough to see the
first class of medical students come to
Beaumont:' says Maisels.
The students will spend their third
and fourth years of medical school at
Beaumont after completing two years of
classroom work at Oakland University.
He would also like to increase the pedi-
atric staff for the children's hospital; he
dreams of having more money and space
to do so. He would focus on recruiting
hard-to-find pediatric sub-specialists in
gastroenterology, endocrinology, rheuma-
tology and nephrology.
"It needs to grow:' Maisels says. "You
can't stay static."

❑

Ilene Wolff is a media relations specialist and

Web editor with Royal Oak-based Beaumont

Hospitals.

June 25 2009

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