Victor P. Satinsky was my cousin. He grew up in an extended family relationship with my mother, having been taken care of by mother’s aunt and uncle after the death of his parents when he was a young child. He was always very close with and attentive to my mother and our family. He went into medicine and took a residency in surgery, ultimately specializing in cardiothoracic surgery. He trained with some of the early pioneers in that field. He was credited with a number of innovations in surgery and authored articles published in professional journals describing these developments. His name became world famous as the result of his inventing a vascular clamp which was, and still is widely used – The Satinsky Clamp. He ultimately became my medical mentor.
My earliest recollection of seeing him at work dates back to my childhood, I suspect it was in the mid 1940’s, when he came to our house on Diamond Street. I remember being in our living room where he produced a vial and a needle and proceeded to apply a smallpox vaccination to my arm. I don’t think there were any other vaccinations during that time period.
My next memory of a doctor-patient event with him also dates to my childhood when I fell while playing in our back alley and injured my wrist. Mother was concerned and decided to have Vic take a look at me. At that time he worked at Mt. Sinai Hospital in South Philly. Not having a car we travelled by PTC (later to become SEPTA). I think it took three lines. The first was the 70 trolley which ran on 54th street just next to our house which was the second house from the corner of 54th and Diamond. I don’t remember the other lines but we had to travel to 5th and Reed streets, Mt Sinai’s location in South Philly. How do I know the address? Because that was where I spent eight months of my internship after medical school. When we arrived and found Vic, I remember his examining my wrist and then telling me to make a fist and punch him in the stomach with the injured hand. I did. “Did that hurt much?” he asked. It hurt a lot but I wouldn’t admit it. “No.” I lied. “You’re OK.” He concluded. No X ray was taken. We departed, retracing our route by PTC to get home. Whatever the injury was (bruise? sprain? hairline fracture?) it healed with no residual. Medicine was much simpler in those days. Some years later I decided to call that “The Satinsky test” for wrist injuries.
Our encounters over the next several years were social. Vic would periodically join us in family get-togethers. He was often the “life of the party” and a “funny man”. A sample of his humor appears in a program he wrote for a high school graduation party for me and 3 cousins, entitled:
“Cousins’ Commencement at Gully Run Park, Pa. June 6, 1954
1.Entrance of Graduates. “Pomp & Circumstances” – David Satinsky.
2.Greeting. Dr. Victor Satinsky.
3.Valedictory
Salutatory
Dr. Victor Satinsky
Obligatory
Dr. Victor Satinsky
Purgatory
Dr. Victor Satinsky
Lavatory
Dr. Victor Satinsky
4.Musical Selections - “nature Boy” by Itchi Boy
5.Presentation of Awards
Dr. Victor Satinsky
6.Choral Group
Mothers of the Graduates. Not Dr. Victor Satinsky
7.“Fore” fathers
Dr. Victor Satinsky
8.Honorary Degrees – To Mothers
Dr. Victor Satinsky
9.Presentation of Diplomas
Dr. Victor Satinsky
Oh!
The Graduates
Ann Bob Helene Linda
Some time in my mid teens I decided I wanted to become a doctor. My father, an optometrist, was much in favor of that interest. He let me know that he would like to have become a physician, but he could not afford the cost of the extensive training involved, so he settled for optometry. Vic became a role model for me and quietly encouraged me in that direction. When, in college at Penn, it came time to apply to medical school I applied to Penn and to Jefferson. I was not accepted at Penn, but I was accepted at Jefferson. I suspect that Vic was of some help in that. I knew he had some good contacts at Jeff and I always suspected he took advantage of them on my behalf, but I never knew just how much he did or how that affected my admission. Looking back, it turns out that I followed in his footsteps in a number of areas. We both went to Penn for undergraduate studies; Jefferson Medical College; and internship at Mt. Sinai which had become Einstein Medical Center, Southern Division, when I was there. He next had two years of surgical residency and then entered the army during WW II as a general surgeon. Here we start to diverge. After my internship and 1½ months of a general surgery residency (at Hahnemann), I was drafted into the navy in August of 1963 as a general medical officer (two years before the flare-up of the Viet Nam war). After I left active duty I started an orthopaedic surgery residency at Penn. Vic may have had some influence there, too. I recall he spoke to Dr. Ralston, chairman of the orthopaedic department at Penn, on my behalf.
When Vic left the service he came back to Philadelphia and joined the staff at Hahnemann where he concentrated on the emerging field of cardiothoracic surgery. For reasons unknown to me, some time during the late 1950’s Vic left his practice in Philadelphia and moved to Los Angeles where he worked at Cedars-Sinai medical center. He also became involved in producing movies. He had been an amateur playwright having written about 50 full length plays, a few of which were produced in the US and abroad. He also wrote many poems and essays. Something happened that did not go well for him in LA so in 1961 he returned to Philly where he got a position at Hahnemann as professor and director of surgical research, primarily in the field of cardiothoracic surgery. He had been troubled by some sort of emotional disturbance and he became interested in and involved in psychotherapy. One of his outlets was to conduct an early morning radio show with a psychotherapy theme. He also became involved with mentoring (treating) emotionally troubled high school and college students by having them participate in a program in his research lab at Hahnemann. For the college students he called this effort his High Ability College Dropout program.
He had varied interests also including playing the clarinet, painting, and fencing. We had periodic contact over the ensuing years. One of our interests in common, outside of medicine, was canoeing. On one occasion we got together for a canoe trip along one of the small rivers in New Jersey that fed into a lake. When we reached the lake it was play-around time. I still have an image of Vic climbing up to balance with one foot on each gunnel of the canoe, near the stern, and then pumping the canoe up and down to propel it forwards – “gunnel jumping”. And, he didn’t fall off. I remember thinking to myself at the time – what an image! Here’s a guy, 25 years my senior, doing a stunt I wouldn’t have wanted to try; and I didn’t.
Our big canoeing adventure came soon after I completed my tour of duty in the Navy, in August 1965. We had been corresponding towards the end of my Navy time and we planned to do a canoe trip in Maine with several of Vic’s High Ability College Dropout participants. For them it was partly therapeutic. For all of us – just a fun trip. Vic had a desire to canoe on the Allagash River. Somehow I located a place to rent canoes near the area we wanted to explore. We started out with no specific plan or itinerary. It was Vic and I and 4 of his students. It was going to be a camping and canoe trip. Come the end of our first travel day we didn’t know where we could camp. We happened to stop at a church with a nice grassy back lawn. Vic was not shy; he went into the church, found the minister and got permission for us to camp overnight on the back lawn. Towards the end of the next travel day Vic had an idea where we could stay in comfort. He knew a guy who owned a summer camp. We found the camp. Vic found his friend and imposed on him to let us stay overnight in an unused cabin. We then headed into central Maine and found the Allagash River where we spent a nice day canoeing. The next day we travelled to Moosehead Lake, paddled around on it for a day, and then camped for the night on an island in the lake. The following day we headed to another river – the Kennebeck – for another nice canoe adventure day. That night we found a campground and made camp. The students wanted to go into a nearby town to have some fun. They drove into town while Vic and I stayed in camp. Later that night their car returned without 2 of the group. It turns out that two of them had been arrested for some infraction in the town, and were going to be taken to court which was in session in the middle of the night! Vic went back with the remaining students and a couple of hours later returned with all of the students. What happened? Vic said that he went up to talk to the judge and asked the judge to go easy on the two under arrest. He also schmoozed with the judge, mentioning that he was a friend of another judge in Maine, whom, by chance, this judge knew. Case dismissed. Students released to return to camp. Next day – return home.
Some time in the late 1980’s our doctor-patient relationship reversed. In his mid 70’s he took up the martial art called Aikido. It involved throws and falls. When he told me about it I was concerned. I had taken Judo courses as a teenager and in college so I knew what forces he would be subjected to with the falls. I had a cautionary note: “Vic, at your age you don’t bounce as well when you get thrown to the ground. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before one of the falls he took in training injured his shoulder. He came to me for treatment. He had sustained a 3rd degree acromio-clavicular dislocation with the end of the clavicle displaced above the top of the acromion, as all of the connecting ligaments had torn. I chose to recommend non-surgical treatment. He agreed with that approach. He went on to heal and regain full function of the shoulder. He also returned to Aikido and at age 80 earned a black belt.
I treated him again for minor injuries sustained when he fell into an unprotected hole in the sidewalk. These were minor injuries, not requiring any complicated treatment, and he recovered rapidly.
In the mid 1990’s Vic asked me to see cousin Florence, a woman in her 80’s who had fallen and injured her knee. I found that she had a displaced fracture of her patella and I recommended surgery. She agreed. Vic asked if he could be in the operating room to watch the procedure. Of course he could! I was totally honored to have my medical mentor, a world-renowned surgeon watch me work. I planned to reduce the fracture under arthroscopic visualization and then place screws across the fracture through small incisions, thus minimizing the wound exposure. We were in the locker room, changing into scrubs, when a surgeon I knew, a vascular surgeon at that, came into the locker room. I saw my opportunity. I went over to him and said, “Mike, I know you use the Satinsky clamp a lot.” “Sure,” he replied. Then I pointed to Vic and said, “Mike, come over here and let me introduce you to its inventor, Vic Satinsky.” “Wow!!!” he cried. “Can I get your autograph!?” P.S., the surgery went well.
In my mother’s last year of life she lived in The New Ralston House, a nursing home near the Penn campus at 36th and Chestnut. I digress for a moment. On the occasion of son Bill’s graduation from Penn, ceremonies were held in Franklin Field, Penn’s football stadium. I was able to get mother into her wheelchair and I wheeled her about five blocks to the stadium where I got special permission to bring the wheel chair onto the field for an up-close view of the ceremonies. Returning to Victor stories, he was a frequent visitor to mother in the nursing home and often read to her some of the plays and poems he had written. Mother died in January 1994. Vic died at age 84 in September 1997.
Dr. Bobby Glazer
Not Dr. Victor Satinsky
March 2015
