The weekly Lchaim newsletter is disseminated to thousands of Jews before each shabbat. It is published by Chabad in NY and read across the US. Our congregant Dr. Marty Graf was featured this week! Here is his beautiful article below. Rabbi Menachem M Bluming
The Conduit Dr. Martin Graf has been practicing internal medicine since 1964. He began attending college at Alfred University after graduating high school at 16. From there, he attended Wake Forest Medical School in North Carolina, where he finished his medical boards with the highest mark. Though he hadn't needed to study to pass his boards, when Dr. Graf started seeing patients, as an intern and then a resident, "I wanted to know everything. I wanted to help solve all the problems that were being brought to me. I read and read and read. " Dr. Graf attended the University of Chicago for his medical residency. The only resident not from an Ivy League school, he was named Chief Resident in his last year. He also did a fellowship in allergy and immunology at NYU, as well as two years in the military at Bethesda Naval Hospital. "My real strength is patient care, though. And that is what I have been doing for the past 47 years." Dr. Graf met his wife, Judith, during his fellowship. "I feel G-d guided me to meet her. My parents found a studio apartment for me near NYU. A few weeks before I was to move in, the sitting tenants decided to stay. There was another apartment available in the same building. Judith was my next door neighbor but our paths never crossed. And then, one day, both of our apartments got flooded, and we went into the hallway, which is where we met. "I was raised in a home where my mother was agnostic and my father didn't attend synagogue. I did not go to a synagogue after my Bar Mitzva until we had a son and wanted him to go to Hebrew school. ""While at the synagogue, there was an assistant rabbi who gave me a copy of a debate between Dennis Praeger and Howard Kushner on why bad things happen to good people. I was so impressed with Mr. Praeger's arguments that I began listening to his tapes. He then did the monumental task of teaching Torah for the next 18 years. I anxiously awaited my four tapes each month "Six years ago I got in touch with Rabbi Yehudah Shurpin from Chabad.org's 'Ask the Rabbi.' Rabbi Shurpin recommended I attend a JLI class (myjli.com) at my local Chabad. When I attended my first class at Chabad of Potomac, seeing a rabbi with a black hat and beard was as strange for me as seeing someone from an African tribe. Rabbi Mendel Bluming has been an excellent teacher, spiritual leader, and good friend. Since then, I have continued my studies with Rabbi Bluming and as well with Isser Charter, my mentor at JNET (jnet.org)." Dr. Graf contacted us to share with our readers stories of how he sees G-d's guidance in his medical practice. A few of those stories follow: Soon after I went into practice, I had a new patient come into my office. She was 75 years old and I greeted her by saying "Welcome Nan Fox." She immediately told me "Sonny boy, my name is Mrs. Charles Fox and if you want to see me again you will refer to me as such." I noted that in her chart. After I finished the history in my consultation room and physical exam in the examining room I told her my nurse would come in to help me with an additional exam. She said, "Sonny boy, no one examines me there." I noted in the chart that she refuses the exam and not to ask her ever again. She came in yearly for her complete physical and on the 10th year after completing her exam, for some inexplicable reason I said, "Mrs. Fox. How about me doing the exam this year?" To my astonishment she agreed. I found an early cancer, she was operated on and cured. A few years later I received a phone call at midnight from the husband of a patient of mine who was in Hawaii. She had always enjoyed excellent health but that day had suddenly lapsed into a coma. All her lab tests were normal and they were preparing to do an exploratory operation on her brain to try to find out what had happened to her. We didn't yet have Cat Scans or MRI's. I asked him if she had had a urinary tract infection and he said "yes." Was she taking Cipro? "Yes" I told him to stop the Cipro and she would wake up. She stopped it and returned to normal health. To the best of my knowledge, coma due to Cipro is either exceedingly rare or has never been reported. My diagnosis was not humanly possible. It was then that I realized G-d was using me to help others. A few years later, my brother had an appointment with me. On performing a routine medical exam, I felt something that seemed abnormal to me. Although his blood test returned normal, I felt compelled to send him to a specialist. The specialist called me to tell me that he thought everything was normal. I told him about my concerns. He said if I insisted he would do a biopsy. The biopsy came back as cancer. I sent him to Dr. Patrick Walsh, the famous urologist at Johns Hopkins who invented the nerve sparing operation for cancer of the prostate. Dr Walsh told my brother that this was the smallest cancer of the prostate he had ever treated! I was so grateful to G-d as my brother and I are very close. I can cite dozens more instances where G-d has used me to help people, but I will end with one where G-d used my stupidity to help another patient. Mr. Pflum had a complete physical exam scheduled. Unfortunately that morning I had two emergency patients come in who both needed to be hospitalized. When I finally called my first scheduled patient in, I was 1 1/2 hours late and for the first and only time, I brought him directly to the exam room without doing my usual history. I didn't even review his chart. Everything appeared to be normal and my nurse did an EKG because he had mild hypertension. The EKG was wildly abnormal so I looked at his chart to see what his last EKG showed. It was then that I realized I had done a complete history and physical on him just three months ago and his EKG then was completely normal. If I had reviewed the chart in advance as I always do, I would not have repeated the EKG. I referred him to a cardiologist and he had a 99% blockage of the main coronary artery. He was operated on and cured. I told this story to my son who is an outstanding emergency room doctor and he said, "Dad, you're just a good doctor." I told him that I am neither a good or bad doctor; if you study Torah and allow G-d to come into your life you may be as fortunate as I have been. I frequently get praise and thanks from my patients, but I always tell them not to thank me; I am only the conduit, thank G-d.
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AuthorRabbi Mendel Bluming also dedicated six years to serving on the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, where he received the Matthew H. Simon Rabbinical Award for exceptional communal leadership. Archives
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