Monthly Archives: January 2012

Recently here, I referred to my childhood pediatrician, Dr. Arthur Grossman, as legendary. That's a bit of overstatement but let me tell you why it's only a bit…

Dr. Grossman was often written about in local newspapers for either of two reasons. One was that he was "The Pediatrician to the Stars." He treated the children of celebs like Jerry Lewis and Jack Lemmon. If you read the official biography of Jack Lemmon, you may remember how Mr. Lemmon put a little of his career on the line to narrate a TV documentary that ripped into the auto industry for air and water pollution. My Dr. Grossman was the man who recruited Lemmon for that project.

Not only that but Dr. Grossman was also a talented musician. He was a member of a group called the Los Angeles Doctors' Symphony Orchestra that used to perform at charity events. I found this clipping online in a 1957 magazine article and hi-lighted him…

I don't know why but the notion of an all-doctor orchestra always intrigued me. I had a dream one night where I'm attending one of their events and a person in the audience passes out. The faintee's companion calls out, "Is there a doctor in the house?" and the entire orchestra drops its instruments and runs down to treat the guy.

The thing about Dr. Grossman was that he was everywhere. He had one of the busiest practices in Beverly Hills but he still made house calls when appropriate. One time when it was appropriate was when I was very young and had Scarlet Fever. He came to our home not once but several times…and I still think of that when I'm at a hospital or doctor's office and see folks who look like it took every ounce of energy they had left just to get there…and they're coughing and hacking and sending out germs by the fleet.

Even after I'd graduated to adult-type doctors, he kept popping up in my life. He was involved in every campaign to protect the health of children. When I met anyone else in the world of medicine, personally or professionally, I could drop two names. One was Dr. William Swanson, who lived across the street from us for a few years. I'll tell you about him in a separate piece soon. The other was Dr. Grossman. Everyone who'd ever graduated med school seemed to know both of them and to swear by their integrity as much as they did the Hippocratic Oath.

One night — this was around 1973 — I took a date to the Music Center downtown to see a play, then we went over to Chinatown for a long, late dinner. Around 1 AM, we were driving back down Wilshire Boulevard and we were nearing the intersection of Wilshire and Robertson, which is where Dr. Grossman had his office. I had not been to that office in at least ten years.

A Chrysler driven by someone who'd obviously ingested too much liquor came roaring up behind me doing well over the speed limit. It swerved to pass me, entered the intersection, swerved again in some way we didn't see, ran up onto the curb on the opposite (oncoming) side of Wilshire, then flipped over. A very ugly crash. Looking at it, I would not have been surprised if that driver had been killed on impact.

I pulled over and my lady friend and I dashed over to the wrecked car, which had done a complete 360° rotation and was sitting, rightside up but largely destroyed, in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard. The driver seemed to be alive but the car was starting to smolder, like it was on fire and likely to explode. It never did explode but at that moment, it seemed awfully possible.

The door on the driver's side was locked but the window on the opposite passenger's side was down enough that we were able to get in. She pushed and I pulled a drunk-outta-his-mind driver out and dragged him away from the vehicle. The man was injured and bleeding and not sure what was happening.

A few other cars had pulled over around us and I started to yell towards them, "Somebody call for an ambulance." Before I could, the driver of one ran up…with a doctor's bag.

We just stepped back and let him handle things…and by the time an ambulance, a fire truck and several police cars arrived, he'd stopped all the bleeding and had the man laid out on the street in a position that would do not further damage to his broken bones. When the paramedics arrived, he supervised the treatment and the load-in to the ambulance. The paramedics, I noticed, seemed to know who he was…and I started to think that I did, as well.

As we were giving statements to the police, I heard him give his name and, sure enough: Dr. Arthur M. Grossman.

I must have shrieked, "Dr. Grossman!" I told him who I was and he said, "You've grown."

We had a nice moment of bonding/reunion in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard with street flares burning around us. Then we got into our respective autos, drove off and I never saw him again. He passed away — in the late seventies or early eighties, I think. I just recall reading the obit in the L.A. Times and being amazed at all the accomplishments they listed for him. Quite a guy.

In the mid-nineties, it dawned on me that I didn't really have a doctor. I had a dentist and an opthamologist and a few other specialists but no general practitioner. I was almost never sick so I didn't need one but obviously, one can only stay that way for so long. I went to one that my dentist recommended and didn't like him. Then I went to one that a friend recommended and I didn't like him. Then one day I asked my opthamologist to recommend a physician and he referred me to a Dr. Paul Geller who was, he said, the best doctor in Beverly Hills. I later learned this was a widely-held opinion among others. Anyway, I made an appointment to meet Dr. Geller and kind of interview him, and I went to his office, which was on Wilshire, a few blocks west of Robertson. He was a nice, wise man and I liked him instantly.

He asked me who my previous doctor was. I said, "I really don't have one. I was under my parents' Kaiser account in my teenage years and after that, I never needed a doctor for the longest time. I guess the last steady doctor I had was my pediatrician. He was just down the street from here."

Dr. Geller asked me, "Was it by any chance Dr. Arthur Grossman?"

I was startled. I said, "You knew him?"

Dr. Geller pointed to a photo on the wall of his office. It was a picture of a much-younger him with his best friend and roommate from medical school…Arthur Grossman. "A great guy," Dr. Geller said. "Except that he used to wake me up all the time practicing that damn flute of his."

So once again after a lull, I'm getting all these calls from contractors I've never heard of, offering me free estimates on any work I need done on my house. As it happens, I have a fine contractor and there's no work I need done…but obviously, some company is selling my number as part of a database of potential customers and I see no way to stop this. The "Do Not Call" registry, in which I am listed, only applies to the callers, not to the suppliers…and none of the callers calls me more than once.

Here is how the calls have been going lately. A total stranger calls and begins to tell me about their fine company. Often, they say they're "in my area" doing work for some of my neighbors at the moment. I interrupt them and here's how it goes…

ME: Excuse me. Could you tell me where you got this number?

THEM: Got your number? It comes up on a screen here.

ME: Okay, but where did your company get it in order to put it on your screen?

THEM: I really don't know.

ME: Well, if I'm going to hire a contractor, they're going to have to prove they're trustworthy. And if you won't answer that question for me, you're not trustworthy.

And they mutter something like, "Sorry to have taken up your time" and they hang up. So far, not one of them has offered to tell me where they got the number in order to prove their integrity. If one ever does, I'll let you know…after I inform them I don't need a contractor.