Death of Jealousy
Two Jealousies Explored
Just a short blog entry exploring 2 of my jealousies; both centered on peers who went farther/did more in medicine.
Scott Allen Lerner was born a few months before me in 1947 in Kansas City, Missouri — probably at Menorah Hospital. In the 1960’s he lived 4 blocks from us, in Prairie Village, Kansas; we attended Shawnee Mission East High School together. He was a good person, a solid student, and active in the Jewish B’nai Brith Youth Organization. The boys’ affiliate was then known as AZA and the girls’ as BBG. One of my closest neighbors and friends back then was Mark Horowitz, who was also one of Scott’s closest friends.
When Mark, who was famously successful in AZA politics, got stuck under the surgeon’s knife for a bleeding ulcer vagotomy towards the end of high school, Scott ran in his place for President of the AZA Mo-Kan (Missouri-Kansas) chapter, and won. Mark’s girlfriend (?or ex?) of the time, Kathy Palan, was meanwhile elected President of the Mo-Kan BBG. Scott and Kathy ended up married (after being together at school in Indiana?) and then divorced. Mark moved on to another girlfriend, Evy, who is now married to yet another guy from our high school, Morrie Warshawski.
Morrie and Evy live in Napa. He writes/consults and she organizes events; one of their daughters recently produced a film (Big Sonia) about Morrie’s diminutive Mother’s survival in the Death Camps.
Fool that I was, I took 6 years to collect a college degree, along with a bonus felony conviction. Scott, more mature, took only 4, and went straight on to medical school. Then while I bounced around a year in Berkeley fixing industrial sewing machines, began law school, got my law degree and was refused entry in the California Bar (due to the felony), Scott was finishing residency and becoming a pulmonary specialist. By the time I’d wasted another few years working in the California State Senate, learning Polish, starting to study medicine in Krakow, getting arrested and expelled from Poland, learning French, etc., etc., Scott had become the head of a medical group, an associate professor of medicine, and Director of Medical Education at St. Luke’s, a large Kansas City Community Hospital.
Krystyna and I visited Kansas City in 1986/87, when I was an intern at Sioux Valley Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We visited Scott’s home, an imposing place in a wealthy suburb — something we could never have afforded then (or now). Krystyna recalls that Scott didn’t come — he was busy at the hospital — though I think he returned late. We mostly met his wife (second marriage) and I believe some of their children. I was jealous of his success then, and remained so, until he unexpectedly died at home in January, 2000. See: Scott’s obituary. I think since then I’ve been markedly less jealous of him; perhaps my jealousies shifted to Marc Lieberman.
I didn’t know Marc Lieberman that well since he arrived at Reed College a year after I (but graduated a year before me due to my aforementioned tardiness). He seemed like a decent fellow, from a family of rabbi’s and doctor’s. After mastering Hebrew for premed in Israel, marrying a girl from there, and having a son, he ended up in ophthalmology as a glaucoma expert, moving from one prestigious academic leadership position to another. What’s not to be jealous about Glaucoma Chief at Stanford? As if that weren’t enough, he co-authored the classic textbook in his field, and made yearly 4–6 week trips to India and Burma to provide medical care and training. Color me green.
Then, to top it off, while head of Glaucoma at CPMC in San Francisco, the same hospital where I was Chief Resident and for five years an ER doctor, he discovered Buddhism (along with his second wife, in a marriage which, like the first, ended in divorce, but then nothing in life is perfect, n’est-ce pas?). He became a leader of the Northern California Buddhist community, spent time with the Dalai Lama, and finally established the Tibetan Vision Project.
He devoted two months every year to treating cataracts in the high-altitude Tibetan plateau’s impoverished population exposed to high doses of UV sunlight. He trained local Tibetan ophthalmologists to do the surgery, and helped thousands to see clearly again. (See: Visioning Tibet). This all made my paltry 6 weeks in 1997 of delivering retail crude medical care at the Surmang Dutsi-til clinic in Gyegu, Tibet, appear anemic. Unfortunately, Marc’s Tibetan efforts ended in 2008 as the repressive Chinese Communist regime closed off Tibet to NGO’s.
According to the Reed Alumni Magazine Marc died in August, 2021, from prostate cancer. I am sure he got the best medical care available. Did my duo-doctor jealousies die with him, or have they simply moved on to other targets…….
- *FPNWG = Fletcher Pratt Naval War Game
