14 | OCTOBER 3 • 2019 

P

ediatrician George Blum, M.D., 
of Bloomfield Township began 
practicing medicine in 1960. It was 
a time when he was regularly treating 
children with measles, mumps, polio, 
meningitis, severe pneumonia, jaundice, 
tuberculosis and diphtheria — many 
conditions that today are preventable by 
vaccination.
He also treated children with enlarged 
heads due to hydrocephalus (also known 
as water on the brain). Doctors didn’
t 
yet have shunts at their disposal for the 
condition. Blum said he also made many 
house calls.
“I thought house calls were fun,
” he 
said. “I would sometimes get paid with 
cake.
”
He would typically pack up his five 
kids in the family van and take them 
along for calls. His son Robert was in 
tow; and from kindergarten until age 10, 
he would observe his father interacting 
with parents and children.
“I remember many of those house 
calls,
” said Robert, who trained to be a 
pediatrician like his father. “I remember 

that at the dinner table Dad would take a 
million calls. He just taught us how to be 
doctors.
”
George, now 88, not only taught 
Robert, a Beverly Hills resident, how to 
cultivate good bedside manners, but also 
how to put children and their parents at 
ease.
He taught us “dumb little jokes that 
make kids laugh,
” said Robert, 58, who 
began practicing pediatric medicine as 
a doctor of osteopathy in 1994, after 
graduating from Des Moines University 
College of Osteopathic Medicine in Iowa.
And now, fast forward to the present, 
and the Blum family has produced a 
third pediatrician with Robert’
s daughter 
Natalie, 30, joining Southfield Pediatrics 
(in Bingham Farms and Novi) at the 
beginning of August. The Royal Oak 
resident graduated from Michigan State 
University’
s College of Osteopathic 
Medicine in May 2016. She has three 
siblings, Madeleine, a social worker, and 
brothers Cameron and Weston, who 
both work for Disney.
“I tried hard to like something other 

continued on page 16

The 
Blum 
Legacy

Three generations of 
pediatricians share a passion 
for treating young patients. 

ELIZABETH KATZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Jews in the D

TOP: Drs. George, Natalie and Robert Blum 
confer in the office. 

PHOTOS BY RUDY THOMAS

on the cover