A Jewish Story. Sheldon Cohen
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advances of the day and he missed them, but he prided himself on the best use of his own high-tech equipment: his eyes, ears, nose and hands. Trained as he was in the early days of the twentieth century, he considered himself a disciple of Sir William Osler, one of the first to teach at the bedside and promote the importance of the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The complete physical examination was crucial and he had the necessary ancillary equipment he needed to perform this task. In addition, he promoted Dr. Osler’s adage, “Let the patient talk, doctor, she’s trying to tell you the diagnosis.” He believed in this because he agreed that a thorough medical history and physical examination would establish, with a high degree of certainty, a correct diagnosis about eighty percent of the time.
He worked with Jewish, Byelorussian and Russian doctors and nurses. This was a welcome change from what he, as a physician, had experienced in Germany after Hitler’s assumption of power. As soon as Hitler took control, he was stymied and subjected to discrimination from surprising sources—those who had been friends. It was amazing to him how one man could change the thinking of intelligent people and turn neighbor against neighbor; proof of Hitler’s narcissistic power as he reminded himself.
He did not make a great deal of money in his new position in Minsk, but his income, as well as his wife’s, made them comfortable—and that’s all that counted after what they had just been subjected to.
Although medicine was rewarding from the professional standpoint, it was also frustrating because there was so little that doctors of internal medicine could do. In actuality, there was so little that they knew. There were many maladies of unknown etiology. The most common question he had to answer was, “What causes it, doctor?” “We don’t know, but there’s a lot we can do to help,” was his standard answer. He wished that medicine would advance to the extent that the answer to the questions about “cause” would roll off his tongue with ease and confidence.
Even the known that infectious disease like pneumonia and strep throat were not treatable with a specific agent to cure in all instances. At this time, the treatment was to make the patient comfortable, follow them with frequent vital signs and be sure that their hydration and nutrition was adequate. This was to support the patients own ability to heal; a little understood mechanism. Perhaps the day would come soon when specific treatment would be available and scientists developed a full understanding about the exact mechanism of self-healing. In the meantime, the young did well, but infants and the elderly had a high mortality rate.
Leah got right to work as soon as they arrived in Minsk. Because of the closeness of work and schools for their children, Leah would be sure to walk to Emily’s school with her little girl at least until she felt confident in her new surroundings and also until Leah was confident. She and Ben would go to work together as they both had to be there at the same time. Leah only worked until 2:00 PM, which would give her plenty of time to be with her children when they arrived home from school. All the logistics were falling into place.
Leah worked in the clinic and was responsible for immunizations. At the time, there was only immunization against Small Pox, Diphtheria, Pertussis (Whooping cough), and Tetanus. In addition, there was Rabies vaccine available for the occasional child bit by a rabid animal, and Typhoid vaccine as this disease was still a threat.
She also did clinical nursing working under the direction of the attending doctors. This included taking vital signs and doing triage to determine the severity of the problem to prioritize the sicker children and occasional adult to the front of the line. Enjoying nursing practice as much as she did, it was a labor of love.
The time came to take Emily and David to the gym to sign them up for swimming and gymnastics. Although they had passed by the facility, they had never entered, so they both viewed the visit with great anticipation.
They visited the gymnastic section of the gym first. When David entered, his eyes opened wide. The first thing he noticed was that there was a long vault run. He breathed a sigh of relief because the Berlin gym where he practiced was too small to accommodate this event. All the standard gymnastic events were available for practice. He looked at his mother—a wide smile on his happy face. There were many gymnasts there varying in age from three to adult. Their skills were evident to a nervous David.
The Russian gymnasts were the best in the world, so David was apprehensive and his mother could tell. “Don’t worry, David, you’ll show them a thing or two. My son is the best.”
Ben had visited the gym when he made his trip to Minsk and had introduced himself to Coach Anatoli Stepchik. Stepchik appeared to be in his early thirties, but still looked like the typical gymnast: firm and fit with the muscular definition of a prepared anatomical specimen, each muscle well delineated from its neighbor.
Leah approached him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Stepchik, my name is Leah Frohman. I hope you remember my husband, Ben, who spoke to you about six weeks ago. We’re the family who moved to Minsk from Germany, and my son David has been in gymnastics for eleven years. This is David, sir.”
Coach Stepchik approached David with outstretched hand, “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Frohman. Hello, David, your father told me all about you. I welcome you to our gym.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“My, you both speak such good Russian,” said the coach.
“My husband and I were both born here,” answered Leah.
“Oh, I see. Welcome back.” Turning to David, he said, “How old are you, David?”
“I’m almost sixteen, sir.”
“Good, David, do you want to show me what you can do?”
An alarmed Leah said, “Oh, Mr. Stepchik, with all the moving that we’ve done, David hasn’t practiced for about three weeks.”
David interjected as soon as the last word was out of his mother’s mouth. “I can show Mr. Stepchik some things, mother. I’ve been doing strength exercises almost every day by myself to keep in shape,” said David.
Stepchik added, “If your mother’s worried, David. We can wait. There’s no hurry.”
“Please mother. I’m pretty sure I’ll be ok. I won’t do anything tough, I promise.”
Observing the pleading expression on her son’s face, Leah said, “Well, Mr. Stepchik, I don’t know much about gymnastics, but if David’s confident, I guess it’ll be okay.”
David leaped up.
“If it’s good with your mother, it’s fine with me,” said the coach. “Just do some simpler exercises. Pick your best stuff.”
With his coach watching, David warmed up with some stretching exercises, ran in place and then did a short tumbling run followed by a stint on the pommel horse and parallel bars. He kipped up on the high bar and launched into a series of giant swings, then dismounted with a one and one half twisting somersault. It looked perfect to Leah. “Ten,” she shouted.
The coach clapped his hands. “I like what I see, David, We’ll keep an eye on you for the first couple of weeks, but I’m pretty confident you’ll be on the senior team.”
The smile on David’s face could have lit up the gym at night.
“Let’s sign your son up, Mrs. Frohman. I look forward to working with him.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Emily had been sitting in complete silence, observing and showing patience, but smiling now because it was her turn; she could not wait to see the swimming pool.
The twenty-five meter pool was in excellent shape. On both long ends of the pool, there were three levels of wooden benches for observers. The swimming coach was a young woman by the name of Tamara Shebrianovich. Like most swimmers, she was slim and supple with loose flexible muscles. She asked, “How long have you been swimming, Emily?”
“Four years.”
“Can you swim all the four strokes?”
“Yes,