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GENERATIONAL
PERSPECTIVES
MULTIGENERATIONAL MEDICINE:
THE FIRST GENERATION
By Adam Ratner, MD
I call medicine our family genetic disorder. Of my parents, aunts
and uncles, only two were not medical professionals. My sister,
Emily, and I are both physicians and a large percentage of my
cousins and their spouses are physicians, nurses or other health pro-
fessionals. Our daughter is a medical student.
All of my grandparents and their siblings were refugees from east-
ern Europe who came to this great country more than a century ago.
They came with no money, no college education and little more
than the clothes on their backs. They initially didn’t even speak Eng- Bexar County Medical Society. At the end of his life he was the old-
lish but they had vision, drive and determination. My paternal
grandfather wanted to become a physician but circumstances did
not allow this as he had to work hard to support himself and his
family. As a young child, I remember him saying to me that my fa-
ther and physicians in general had the most important job on earth
(as healers) and that they were “next to God.”
My paternal grandmother, who was a seamstress, passed away when
my father was a teenager. My father explained to me that this tragedy
motivated him to become a diligent student so that he could ulti-
mately become a physician. His mother taught him to sew, which also
strongly influenced his later decision to become a pediatric surgeon.
A few words about my father,
Irving A. Ratner, MD:
My father loved his work. He was born and grew up in Boston.
He attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and then
Tufts Medical School in Boston. He obtained his post-graduate
training in Pediatric Surgery at the Boston Floating Hospital under
the supervision of Dr. Orvar Swenson, a founder of the medical spe-
cialty. He first came to San Antonio during the Korean War, courtesy
of the Air Force, to train as a flight surgeon.
After completing his tour of duty and his specialized medical
training he returned to San Antonio in 1961 to establish himself as
the first pediatric surgeon in the region. During the more than 45
years of his practice in San Antonio, he touched the lives of tens of
thousands of young patients and their family members. He served
as both a teacher and role model to many physicians including my
sister and I and other relatives.
Back in the pre-HIPAA, pre-ID badge days, he used to take me
to the hospital to make rounds with him. He never overtly pressured
16 San Antonio Medicine • May 2017
my sister and I to become physicians but he instead immersed us in
the culture of our profession and let us decide for ourselves.
He truly believed that his patients and their families came first
and dedicated his life to their service and training others to do the
same. He trained many physicians, both civilian and military, and
served as the Chief of Surgery at the Santa Rosa Children's Hospital
for many years. He also practiced in the Baptist, Methodist and Uni-
versity Hospital systems and was a long-standing member of the
est practicing pediatric surgeon in the U.S. and Canada, and we sus-
pect in the world.
He was a private pilot and flew to underserved parts of Texas and
Central America where he took care of patients and educated local
physicians who did not have access to the level of medical care he
could provide. He also enjoyed flying his family around the state,
the country and the northern hemisphere on the relatively few va-
cations he allowed himself to take.
As was his wish, he passed away while working in the hospital,
making rounds on his patients.
A man of energy and passion, great wisdom and insight, love and
impeccable integrity, he earned the great respect of those he touched.
He lived on his terms: A healer and a teacher until the last moment
of his life.
A few words about my mother, Dr. Joan Ratner:
She calls herself a child of the depression. She was born in 1928
in Brooklyn, N.Y. to Abraham and Sadie Jackler, both immigrants
from eastern Europe. She had an older brother, Jacob, or Jack as he
was called. Jack was much older than Mom and ultimately became
a cardiologist in Maine (see below).
One of the consequences of the economic hardships of the de-
pression was that Mom and her family moved around the country
following work opportunities for my maternal grandfather. They
went from Brooklyn to Maine, then to Georgia and then to
Holyoke, Massachusetts, where she lived prior to entering the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts in Amherst. She was a very good student
but met and was attracted to my Dad, because he was a great student
and he tutored her in physics. One thing led to the other and they
were ultimately married. They moved to Boston where Dad went