Upcoming Services
| Marge Samson |
Sun May 5th at 1:30 IRA KAUFMAN CHAPEL | |
| Ayala Jedwab |
Wed May 1st at 1:00 IRA KAUFMAN CHAPEL | |
| Gregory Kwartowitz |
Wed May 1st at 11:00 IRA KAUFMAN CHAPEL |
FUNERAL DETAILS
Dr. Morton R. Lazar
Dr. Morton R. Lazar, 101, of West Bloomfield, Michigan, died on 03 November 2014. The Memorial Service was held at IRA KAUFMAN CHAPEL on Wednesday, 05 November 2014 at 12:00 PM . Rabbi Joshua Bennett officiated. Click  to watch a video of the recorded service.Interment at Clover Hill Park Cemetery.
The family of Dr. Morton R. Lazar will be gathering through the afternoon of Friday, November 07 at the residence, 6911 Pebble Park Circle, West Bloomfield MI 48322. The phone number is 248-851-3136. Friends are welcome to return to the residence immediately following the burial at Clover Hill, and are requested to visit on Thursday and Friday beginning at 2:00 P.M. Family members include: Beloved husband of Hecky Kasle Lazar and the late Ethel "Bunny" Lazar. Cherished father of Marijane Einstein, Maxine (Stuart) Frankel, Michael Kahn (Annette Murzin), Ron (Lucy) Nelson and Cindy (David) Frania. Also survived by many loving grandchildren and great grandchildren. Dear brother of Howard (the late Gloria) Lazar, Dorothy (Sam ) Essick, Alice (the late Seymour) Cantor and the late Richard (the late Jean) Lazar. Brother in law of Gilda (the late Dr. John) Birmingham. Special to the Jewish News - Sept 23, 2010 By: Bonnie Borin Riback Dr. Morton Roger Lazar was the physician who delivered me, my three siblings and many of our Detroit community's baby boomers. His medical career spanned more than 50 years and his bedside manner and skill matched his benevolence. He wanted to alleviate the pain of childbirth, the sometimes excruciating pain accepted and often celebrated rite of passage into motherhood. Luckily, Lazar returned to Detroit in 1943, after completing a four-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN) at Washington University Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mo., to practice medicine at Harper Hospital. There, he became a strong advocate for painless labor and childbirth. It was a novel idea in history. It was a revolutionary idea in medicine. He described his practice of obstetrics as "a labor of love." Lazar's quest for pain free sedation for women in labor, stemmed from his experiences in an obstetrics residency at Washington University Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. He explained, `Back then, in the 1930s and '40s, Morphine, Demerol or Scopolamine used to be given to induce a state of twilight sleep' during labor. I abhorred how women were treated in obstetrics, how they screamed in so much pain during childbirth:' He added, "I couldn't do anything to alleviate all the pain — not until I returned from the Army after taking an anesthesia course in Tennessee" Interest In Medicine Morton Roger Lazar was born in 1913, one of five children of Hungarian immigrants, Irma Deutsch and Isadore Lazar. Living in Lorain, Ohio, they moved to River Rouge in 1914. A kindly neighbor named Dr. St. Louis was likely the first to influence Lazar's interest in medicine. He took a liking to Lazar and allowed the 5-year-old boy to shadow him during the day in his medical office at the corner of West Jefferson and Walnut. He even took Lazar on occasional house calls. After majoring in premedicine at City College (now Wayne State University), the affable 18-year-old college graduate, affectionately nicknamed "Pinky" for his tuft of red hair, attended the University of Michigan Medical School. Lazar was only 22 when he received his medical degree, the youngest to be graduated from the class of 1936. With a one-way ticket and $300 in his pocket, young Morton boarded a train from Ann Arbor to Washington University Barnes Hospital in St. Louis to begin his internship specialty in obstetrics with the help of a Rockefeller grant. There, Lazar worked under Dr. Otto Schwarz, head of obstetrics and gynecology, and also interned in Barnes' pathology department. In the days of quotas and fierce competition that existed in the medical world, getting accepted into medical school or hospital residency programs as a Jew, according to Lazar, was quite an accomplishment. They were restricting Jews in programs everywhere, even at Harper. "Dr. Eddie Mintz was the only other Jewish OB-GYN resident I recall at Harper" "The medical world was rife with anti- Semitism; I experienced it',' Lazar laments. "There was a lot of jealousy, too, in medicine back then. Maybe today, it's different; but back then medicine was a dog-eat-dog world. In a double twist, Lazar had not been given a position at Jewish Hospital of St. - Louis because his Jewish identity had not been revealed at first to its chief of staff. Lazar went on to be appointed as that hospital's chief resident. Detroit might have lost Lazar to St. Louis had it not been for Dr. Norman Miller, a U-M physician who was instrumental in bringing Lazar's reputation to the attention of Dr. George Kamperman, then chief of staff at Harper. Getting Started Detroit in 1943 was a tough place to find work, even for a well-trained physician as Lazar. He started out renting the only partial office space he could find, in the Fisher Building, for $35 a month. "That first month, I never saw a single patient — it shows you how tough times were Lazar said. He worked days seeing patients, nights delivering babies at $15 per, delivery. He says he was lucky to do three a month, while working for the city of Detroit. "Today," he said ,with a hint of remorse, "the kind of medicine I once practiced, well, it's quite different:' Army Years Volunteering in 1943 for service during WWII, Pinky should have been deployed as a captain or a major, but he was too young for those Tanks. Instead, he was made a first lieutenant and sent straight to a training camp in Oklahoma — to "a place nobody heard of;' Lazar said with a smile. "After nine months in the Army", he said, "they promoted me to captain:' He would serve three years in the South Pacific as an Army surgeon in a MASH unit. Surviving his own ordeals under attack from Japanese suicide bombers, treating the wounded from mustard gas, and jaundice from the Atabrine given for malaria, and survivors of the Bataan Death March, Lazar saw his share of war in New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines and Japan. He eventually was promoted to chief of surgery. "I got the feeling there was a lot of gratitude toward anyone willing to take charge he said. By January 1946, the consummate doctor had spent three years at war in the American Army as a surgeon. "I thought I'd never get home he said. And just like that, on April 13, 1946, the physician, officer and gentleman finally received his Honorable Discharge and Relief from Active Duty papers from the Marine Corps. "I actually received two Battle Stars by war's end, but I can't remember where I put my Army uniform',' he laughs. "They tried to get me to stay in the Army by promising to make me a lieutenant general. I'd had enough. I was only afraid my mother wouldn't recognize me when I got home because I'd lost all my red hair." Lazar met his wife, Bunny, at a dance soon after returning from the war. They were married a year and a half later. Bunny had two daughters from a previous marriage. "They're my stepdaughters: Maxine and Mary Jane," he said. Hecky Kasle Lazar is Morton's current wife, a good friend to Bunny Lazar who passed away. "When I returned to Harper in 1946, L began administering epidurals there and over at Sinai Hospital of Detrdit," Lazar said. "Few doctors knew how to do apply those back then. There was other anesthesia being used, such as the caudal block that Dr. Joseph Curhan knew how to administer; but I felt a caudal was given too low in the spinal column whereas epidurals were given a little higher up. It just gave a better block". Lazar recounts, "Epidurals could be given earlier in the labor process, with more than one shot to hold the pain at bay indefinitely. Women went on to deliver babies without the need to push. As a result, my practice grew significantly." I would assume Lazar delivered more than healthy babies in his cradle of care during those post-war years. He delivered anxious fathers from pain as well. On The Frontier When asked what he thought about medical advances in the last decade, about complex legal, ethical and moral posturing over new and available advances in medical technology, he said it is all "so remarkable". Lazar offered thoughtful insights on how he would practice today and his excitement for advances made in numerous areas, like in-vitro fertilization programs, pre-natal corrective surgeries and 3-D fetal imaging, and surrogacy. "Oh, it's a new frontier!" he declared. "As brave new technologies push the boundaries of medical possibility, our culture is both changed by, and changing, those frontiers. Bulwarks of religious and scientific leadership will undoubtedly face off, deferring to the courts to delineate. Tolerance and breaking points will be sorely tested, ultimately, political division and legal wrangling is a certainty. " He added, "As patients are given more choices than ever before, and are better informed and involved, the legal landscape will be hard-pressed to keep up. " Asked about modern medicine, from surrogacy to parenting, he said, sighing: "I think today's technologies have all passed me by. It's so exciting. I'd like to learn it all today. It's all so intriguing. There's enough scientific material — enough fodder for good fiction writing!' He says he has "seen enough changes come about for one lifetime!' Happy Birthday Whether or not Lazar plans to take any more exotic trips, he says he has "led an interesting life!' He was once the proud member of an illustrious group of doctors who traveled all over the country together visiting other OB-GYN practices, observing and learning new techniques and skills, incorporating ideas and increasing medical expertise. Many of us know what it was like to be under Dr. Lazar's care. As he turns 96 this year, we celebrate the achievements of this quintessential character of "The Greatest Generation." For all the empathy that he delivered, Dr. Lazar indeed can look back on his years in obstetrics as a labor of love. It is suggested that those who wish to further honor the memory of Dr. Morton R. Lazar may do so by making a contribution to: Mort Lazar Memorial FundClick to Visit Charity Website or A Charity of Your Choice |