Covenant of Care: Newark Beth Israel and the Jewish Hospital in America

Chapter 7: Medical Research at Midcentury

162 CHAPTER 7 Medical Research at Midcentury
By mid-century, Newark Beth Israel’s buff-colored Spanish style tower building had been a part of Newark’s skyline for nearly a quarter century. Those who had worked through the night in the tower could sip their morning coffee looking out across the city. Dr. Rita Finkler, who spent many such nights at the Beth, recalled how she enjoyed greeting the dawn from the tower’s top floor: “I often saw the beautiful sight of the sunrise which I watched from the tenth floor of the maternity suite. Ah how good it was to have an early breakfast and feel that you really earned it.”1 The institutional culture of the Beth at midcentury combined warmth, encouragement, and opportunity in a way that produced institutional loyalty among staff and physicians alike. In 1964, Kenneth L. Tyson, an undergraduate chemistry major, walked up the Lyons Avenue hill from Bergen Street to interview for an internship with laboratory director Dr. Lester Goldman, well known in Newark for riding herd on his medical technology students. The towering building seemed to loom higher as Tyson approached, and inside, he stood awestruck. For nearly forty years, the imposing lobby with its walls carved of rosy Tavernelle marble, well-proportioned arches, decorative spiral columnettes, and terrazzo floor had momentarily stunned first-time visitors. But amidst the cool marble, Tyson was warmed by the friendliness of the staff members who guided him to Goldman’s office. The laboratory director greeted him with a combination of kindness and interest that made the young non-Jewish man feel very much at home. And indeed for the next thirty years the Beth was home for Tyson, who became a manager and ultimately the Beth’s senior vice president.2 Medical Research at Midcentury 163 The warmth and high spirits that impressed Tyson also characterized the Beth’s medical staff, perhaps in part because by then many of its members were the relatives of an earlier generation of Beth physicians. The hospital’s 1964 annual report listed the family of Dr. Louis Reich, brother-in-law of Dr. Max Danzis, which included Drs. Mortimer, Abraham, and Henry Reich. Drs. Lustig, Goodman, and Schotland were all related by marriage to Dr. Henry Reich. Dr. Walter Rados was carrying on the work of his parents, Drs. Andrew and Berta Rados; Dr. Edward Comando, the work of his father, Dr. Harry Comando. Dr. Rita Finkler’s daughter, Dr. Sylvia Becker, was in practice with her husband, Dr. Marvin Becker. Drs. Robert, Saul, and Herbert Lieb, all cousins, worked in the wards. The Kern family contingent included Dr. Meyer Kern, whose son and grandson were in practice, as well as his nephew and two cousins. Dr. Virginia Drobner, daughter of Dr. Louis Brodkin, was in service at the Beth, and brothers Samuel and Harvey Einhorn practiced together. What Tyson felt on his first visit was more than a family atmosphere. The warmth was expressed in the Beth’s creed, adopted in 1928. Perhaps inspired by a 1924 American Hospital Association pledge, it was composed by a Beth Israel employee whose identity remains unknown: Personal attention, notable for its warmth and sincerity, and inspired by a sympathetic recognition of the human element, is the powerful but gentle handmaiden of science employed by doctors, nurses, and attendants at Beth Israel Hospital. Patients are people—not cases— at this hospital. The sick and convalescent here are not laboratory specimens to be examined, treated, re-examined, and catalogued. Rather they are men, women, and children—human beings—and are treated as such. The value of the human touch as a power for healing is never lost sight of at Beth Israel.3 The words struck a responsive chord in altruists who chose health care. Looking back at his career as the head of the Department of Surgery, Dr. Samuel Diener recalled: “I was the happiest person in the world to be a doctor. I couldn’t wait to get to work. I loved it so much.”4 As the identity of Newark Beth Israel Hospital was transformed during the tumultuous midcentury years, physicians, surgeons, nurses, and the professional, technical, and ancillary staff who worked in the aging ornate tower managed to transform the hospital into a distinguished research and regional medical center. 164 Covenant of Care The Beth at Fifty In 1950, board members struggled to fix...