1634-11 Hospitals WED DEC 05 1984 ED: FINAL
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: 2D LENGTH: 11 . 89" MEDIUM
ILLUST: photo: Shari and Chasyn Gherman-Rance
SOURCE: IRENE LACHER Herald Staff Writer
DATELINE:
MEMO:
AT 35, MOUNT SINAI SOUPS UP
ITS BIRTHDAY WITH HOMEY REMEDY
For you, a little chicken soup.
Mount Sinai Medical Center heralded its 35th anniversary Tuesday by
whipping up 10, 000 cans of the homey remedy under a private label -- Mount
Sinai' s clear, kosher, condensed.
It was fitting, considering that a well-read Mount Sinai study once
hailed chicken soup' s curative powers, stopping just short of putting it on a
level with antibiotics as a cold medicine.
But Dade' s largest private hospital and Miami Beach' s biggest employer
had no cure for what ailed Tuesday morning' s birthday celebrations: rain.
"Music takes away the dust of everyday life, " Alfredo Baldassari,
conductor of the Miami Beach Senior Citizens Orchestra, told about 300
celebrants, minutes before showers began to take away the dust of the
festivities.
There were wet violins. Wet antique nurses ' uniforms. Wet doctors. Wet
birthday cake. Wet Mount Sinai babies .
Between spells of rain, hospital administrators read aloud letters of
congratulations from such luminaries as President Reagan and Gov. Bob Graham.
Miami Beach commissioners proclaimed Tuesday Mount Sinai Medical Center Day.
They ate soggy cake.
Mount Sinai babies aplenty -- more than 70 of the 55, 000 born there --
showed up to have their pictures taken behind a huge baby backdrop with a cut-
out for faces. Some had to be dragged to the ceremony by their mothers.
So how does it feel to be a Mount Sinai baby?
"I had no choice in the matter, " observed Albert Casselhoff, who became
a Mount Sinai baby 24 years ago.
Mount Sinai was forged out of land on Biscayne Bay in 1949, in an era
when area hospitals had restrictions and quotas for Jewish doctors. The small,
non-sectarian hospital ' s first quarters were the old Nautilus Hotel, which
would draw $98-a- week nurses who would migrate south for the winter. They
would tend the winter rush of wealthy tourists and weekend in Havana for
casino gambling.
In the late 1950s, nurses retiring to their quarters for the night would
see Dr. Philip Samet working at midnight and then again at dawn in the cardiac
catheterization laboratory adjoining their dormitory.
This year the cardiologist was still getting attention as one of five
doctors ' doctors at Mount Sinai. Samet was chosen one of the nation' s best
physicians in a survey of doctors by Town and Country magazine.
Over the years, the 699-bed hospital has grown into a major teaching
hospital with 140 interns, residents and fellows and 350 doctors . Patients
number 21,466 a year. In research, Mount Sinai has made its mark in
cardiology, particularly in pacemaker development, and in geriatrics, courtesy
of an abundant elderly population on the Beach.
Mount Sinai also has made headlines because of its patients, tending as
it has to the famous and the infamous. The hospital has ushered in the
children of Muhammad Ali and Barry Gibb. It ushered out reputed mob boss Meyer
Lansky, who died there of cancer.
In the Beach' s headier days 20 years ago, top entertainers such as Sammy
Davis Jr. would perform at annual fund-raisers in exchange for free medical
care. Jackie Gleason has a two-room suite named after him. When comedian Carol
Channing was treated there, she raised eyebrows at Mount Sinai for refusing
to surrender her fur coat and by sleeping in the bathtub with it.
ADDED TERMS: age
END OF DOCUMENT.
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