16 | OCTOBER 3 • 2019 

than pediatrics,
” she said. “I just 
really like kids.
”

PROFESSION BY CHOICE
George Blum said his father 
arrived in America as a teenager 
from Hungary to avoid being 
drafted into the Hungarian Army 
during World War I. His father 
worked as a restaurant server and 
was “very pleased” his son became 
a medical doctor. 
George graduated from the 
University of Michigan Medical 
School in 1955, with a class of 
206 students, six of whom were 
women. Currently, U-M’
s medical 
school has more women in the 
medical school (60.5 percent) than 
men (39.5 percent), according to 
George, who has been a member of 
Michigan’
s medical center alumni 
board, and U-M’
s 2019 statistics. 
He said he was influenced by his 
own pediatrician, Dr. Max Kohn, 
who treated him for scarlet fever 
when he was 10. He was quaran-

tined for six weeks and his father 
had to stay in a hotel for the dura-
tion of his illness.
“My pediatrician was a very 
nice man,
” George said. “He would 
make me feel better. I remember 
how I liked to speak with my doc-
tors who treated me.
”
George said he would see 
Kohn at medical conferences 
once he became a pediatrician. 
He also notes that seven of his 
own childhood patients have 
become pediatricians. 
His relationship with Kohn as a 
youngster taught him how to talk 
to children.
“I tried to tell them jokes and ask 
them about what they were doing,
” 
he said. “Over the years, I still love 
talking to kids.
”
“I never told (Robert) to be a 
doctor,
” George said, adding that 
Robert had originally contemplated 
being a stockbroker. 
“I always just gravitated to kids,
” 
Robert said. He added that he 
enjoys children’
s energy and their 
uninhibited honesty and humor.
“Kids are so funny,” Robert 
said. “They have no filter. They’
ll 
tell you things about their par-
ents that the parents don’
t want 
you to know.”
Natalie said she recalls as a child 
going on rounds with her father 
when he was treating patients at 
Sinai Grace Hospital on Outer 
Drive in Detroit.
“I got to play with babies so that 
was fun,
” she said. 
These days, the Drs. Blum 
administer many childhood immu-

nizations, a move they highly 
recommend to parents. They also 
provided hundreds of vaccinations 
for measles, mumps and rubella 
during the recent measles outbreak 
in Oakland County.
Robert said he sees kids with 
autism, meningitis and many 
cases of epiglottitis (a potentially 
life-threatening condition that 
causes swelling of the cartilage 
that covers the windpipe and can 
potentially block air from the 
lungs). Numerous conditions his 
father treated just don’
t exist any-
more, Robert noted.
“There are some diseases that 
have just disappeared,” he said. 
“We’
re vaccinating ourselves out 
of business.”
However, there are condi-
tions he, his father and daughter 
continue to treat. They see chil-
dren on the autistic spectrum, 
which isn’
t new but was formerly 
termed “mental retardation” 
(now described as an “intellectual 
disability”), along with behavior-
al-based problems like anxiety, 
depression and sleep deprivation.
“I think kids don’
t have enough 
time to just relax and play,
” Robert 
said. “Unorganized activity doesn’
t 
really exist anymore.
”
Patient medical knowledge has 
also changed with the internet. 
Though medical conditions and 
attendant symptoms are searchable 
online, Robert and George say their 
clients still rely on their expertise. 
“It’
s interesting that a lot of 
people get information off the 
internet, but they still ask me 

 “I remember that at the dinner 
table Dad would take a million 
calls. He just taught us how to 
be doctors.”

— DR. ROBERT BLUM

Dr. George Blum treats 
a young patient. 

Jews in the D

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