Dr. B Retires

Editors note: I asked Lydia Baltarowich MD to write an article about her career in the HFH Department of Emergency Medicine last Spring. Dr. B is retiring in January 2022 after an amazing career in the HFH DEM. Here are her reflections on her time at HFH.

“Remembering the HFH DEM”

By Lydia Baltarowich, MD, FACEP, FACMT

After 38.5 years, I worked my last shift in the HFH DEM on New Year’s Eve 12/31/20!

It was a difficult last shift for me because the DEM has been my second home and patient care on the frontlines, has always defined me as a doctor.

This is how my journey “to and through” the DEM unfolded….

I am a Detroiter and a Ukrainian! I was raised and “groomed” in the “Ukrainian Ghettos” on both the West and East Side of Detroit.

My parents immigrated to the USA from Europe after WW II in 1951. They were an inspiration to me of what hard work and a positive vision of the future can accomplish. Our first home in 1955 was across the Freeway from Henry Ford Hospital. My sister and I attended Fairbanks Elementary School on the John C Lodge Service Drive. By the way, when we started kindergarten, we did not speak a work of English. My father worked in the GM Building on Grand Blvd and my mother worked at Henry Ford Hospital in the Oral Surgery Department. So when I joined HFH in 1982, I felt like I was coming home.

I graduated from Wayne State University with a BS in Biology and completed WSU School of Medicine in 1978. As a medical student, I witnessed the birth of Emergency Medicine in Detroit and got to work with its founders, Drs. Judith Tintinnalli, Blaine White, and Ron Krome. These dedicated physicians had a vision of what Emergency Medicine would become in the future - an indispensable and coveted specialty.

Applying to an Emergency Medicine Residency as a primary specialty was not an option in 1978, I did an Internal Medicine residency at the DMC before going on to complete my Emergency Medicine Residency at the University of Cincinnati. When I joined the Henry Ford DEM in 1982 right out of residency, I could not have predicted what an inspiring, amazing, and unforgettable journey I would have, and that it would last nearly four decades!

A huge thank you to Dr. Michael C. Tomlanovich (MCT), our founding chairman, for providing me with the opportunity to become part of the DEM team and this wonderful clinical and academic institution of HFH, which allowed my career to grow & flourish.

Due to the dedication, support, and social consciousness of Dr. MCT, the DEM was a unique work environment. It provided an unusual autonomy to practice the full scope of Emergency Medicine, a strong sense of identity and pride in our relatively new specialty, a commitment to the medical and social needs of our urban patient population, and a camaraderie between all DEM team members that was rare to find.

I still remember my first shift as a staff physician when I discussed cases with then residents, Patrick Loeckner(HFH EM ’84) and Jason White (HFH EM ’84), who were so tall, that they “had to sit down to be on my eye level”, and of course, meeting Gerard Martin was an experience in itself! Learning to stand your ground with the trauma surgeons from Dr. Enrique Enriquez was a real life lesson never forgotten. Dr. Richard Nowak was an inspiring physician- researcher, who could challenge any clinical problem and design a research study around it.

The 1980’s and 1990’s in the DEM were wild and crazy times. Detroit was known for its street gangs, like Young Boys Incorporated (YBI). The “heroin epidemic” was transitioning into the “crack epidemic,” so penetrating trauma was plentiful, and I quickly perfected my thoracotomy skills under the guidance of our beloved Dr. Enrique Enriquez (HFH DEM Senior Staff 1975-2015).

Amidst all that was going on, my DEM journey paused in 1987 when I married Victor, my husband of 34 years. He always provides humor and stability to our family life. We are very proud of our daughter, Viktoria, who graduated from WSU SOM and finished her residency in Family Medicine at the University of Arizona in Phoenix. Our family has a long tradition of professional women: my mother was a dentist and ran her own dental practice in Hamtramck and Warren for 30 years. My older sister is a Harvard-trained radiologist and my younger sister is a dentist. My nieces are all physicians and dentists, except one who is an attorney.

My academic journey in the EM Residency included: Associate Residency Director (1982-1985; 1988-2010), Residency Program Director (1985-1987), and the Didactic Director (1982- 2008), a most cherished position I held for 26 years.

I take pride in contributing to the training of all our DEM graduates, including those who are “Senior, Senior Staff “, like Drs. Rivers, Vallee, Martin, Loeckner, Huitsing, Hays, McGeorge, Amponsah, Stokes, Klausner, Rolland, and Vajda. I also take personal pride in matching Drs Lewandowski and Tokarski into our residency program during my time as Program Director. You are all “La Famiglia”, Forever!

One of my most satisfying clinical achievements in the DEM was working with a dedicated team to create and implement VMAS scoring for agitated patients. We also assisted with the development of the Behaviorial Health Room, which became a place dedicated to providing caring and quality care to our vulnerable and often misunderstood, behaviorally challenged patients.

While working as a full time DEM physician and academic faculty member, I also developed a parallel career in Medical Toxicology. My interest in toxicology was rooted in my medical student and early resident years in Detroit, when Heroin was “king” and Narcan was just “born”. During EM residency in Cincinnati, I was invited to write a chapter on “Sedative Hypnotic Toxicity” for the 1st edition of “Rosen’s Emergency Medicine”. Working on this publication was fascinating and convinced me that I wanted to have a future in toxicology!

In 1985 I became affiliated with our Children’s Hospital of Michigan (CHM) Michigan Poison Control Center (PC), where I was mentored by its inspirational founder and medical director, Regine Aronow, MD. I have continued my affiliation with the Michigan Poison Center, as a Clinical Consultant, a Toxicology Fellowship faculty, as well as a Clinical Consultant at DMC Hospitals, into the present.

After I became an ABEM Board Certified Medical Toxicologist in 1992, I started a clinical Toxicology Consult service at Henry Ford Hospital and was committed to teaching residents and students the science and art of toxicology. I share an equal passion for the “hands on”, frontline aspects of patient care in EM, and for the unusual and challenging cases in my role as a Toxicologist, and therefore, I have maintained a dual career for all this time. I will now “transition” out of EM into only Medical Toxicology and will continue to teach and perform Toxicology Consultations at HFH and the Michigan Poison Center until the end of 2021.

I feel so privileged to have been a part of the DEM Team because we all strive for the same goal every shift, every day: to provide high quality and compassionate care to everyone who comes through our doors and to teach residents and medical students by example to become excellent and respectful physicians.

A BIG “THANK YOU” to everyone in the DEM who put their blood sweat and tears into making our ED one of the BEST in the country: nurses, physicians, residents, MLP’s, pharmacists, technicians, clerical, radiology, and housekeeping staff.

Love, Dr. “B” (Baltarowich)
March 2020