Illinois Medicine

T HE NUM- BERS that outline the career of Leonard Berlin '57, MD '59, Res '63, are astounding. A member of the radiology department at Skokie Hospital for more than 44 years, Berlin has pushed through the doors of the facility more than ten thousand times—and witnessed three changes to the name of the hospital itself. He's authored more than 300 journal articles and delivered hundreds of speeches. But numbers alone are insufficient to capture his impact on thousands of patients and on the field itself. "With Dr. Berlin, the professional and the personal are blended together. He treats his staff like family, he is honest, beyond fair and always pushes all of us to care about the patients and to focus on quality and service," says Mark Edelman, MD, Skokie Hospital's director of interventional radiology. "That sense of family, that dedication to one another—it's a lost art now in corporate medicine." In recognition of his leader- ship, the College of Medicine chose Berlin as the recipient of its 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award, which was presented during the school's reunion in October. "The whole foundation of my career was at the University of Illinois, and I have wonderful feelings towards the university, so this award means a great deal to me," he says. In 1966, Berlin joined the staff of what originally was Skokie Valley Community Hospital. He became chair of the department of radiology in 1977, 10 years before the hospital affiliated with Rush- Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago and became known as Rush North Shore Medi- cal Center. In 2009 the hospital again changed hands and its name, becoming NorthShore University HealthSystem's Skokie Hospital, and with that transition, Berlin assumed the position of vice chairman of the system's radiology department. "He always took care of busi- ness and made sure he got a cor- rect diagnosis, and patients would love coming to us," says Laura Neglia, who worked as an admin- istrator for Berlin for 43 years. "He was very flexible, and very focused on making the patient happy." Since 1987 Berlin has also been a professor of radiology at Rush University, and his col- leagues say he virtually invented the notion of risk management as applied to radiology. After he was sued for malpractice in the 1970s—the case involved a broken bone from a tennis injury that was hidden on the first X-ray that he examined—Berlin filed the first successful medical counter- suit against a frivolous lawsuit. When he won the case in 1976, Time, Newsweek and many of the nation's newspapers covered the story, and a number of doctors followed his lead (the courts later reversed the judgment on a techni- cality, however). But Berlin's interest in the topic didn't end. He studied mal- practice issues and developed best practices—his textbook on mal- practice issues and risk manage- ment for radiologists is in its third edition. "He carved out that sub- specialty and made us all aware of the issues," says Jim Borgstede '70, MD '74, a Colorado radiologist and past president of the American College of Radiologists. "Because of that, his legacy is quality radi- ology and safe radiology." Berlin fears that the threat of lawsuits forces all physicians to order expensive, unnecessary additional tests. He also believes, though, that most malpractice suits filed in recent years are more viable than their 1970s counter- parts. "Very seldom today do you see a case that has no merit what- soever," he says. "It costs so much money for plaintiffs' lawyers to prosecute cases that they look at these cases much more carefully." In Berlin's view, radiologists can protect themselves from legal trouble by offering better patient care. He says good documentation is critical, and he recommends communicating radiology results directly to patients. "Traditionally, the radiologist doesn't talk to the patient, only to the referring phy- sician," he acknowledges. "Unfor- tunately, too often information is lost in the process. Then suddenly there's a patient who wasn't told he has a shadow on his lung and needs a CAT scan, and a year later he has outright cancer." Now 74, Berlin has enjoyed a full life, one enriched by 54 years of marriage to his wife, Phyllis, their four sons and their seven grandchildren. Still, he isn't yet thinking about retirement. The change in management at Skokie Hospital severed the hospital's ties with Rush University, so he is in the process of transferring his academic affiliation to the College of Medicine's radiology depart- ment. "As I enter the winter of my career," Berlin told the crowd at a UIC-sponsored dinner in his honor in November, "perhaps it is now time—and fitting and appropriate—for me to return full circle to where it all began, to my alma mater." Now is your chance to nominate a deserving alumnus. For more information visit www.medicine.uic.edu/reunion or call (312) 355-5138. Do it today...nominations are due July 1! Distinguished Alumni Winners Established in 1994, the Distinguished Alumni Award is bestowed upon alumni who have made outstanding professional achievements and displayed exceptional service to the medical profession, the com- munity, the college and/or the university. 2009 Leonard Berlin '57, MD '59, Res '63, Radiology 2008 Georges C. Benjamin, MD '78, Internal Medicine James C. Pritchard '54, MD '58, Res '63, Pathology 2007 John A. Degiovanni, MD '72, Surgery 2006 Jack S. Remington '54, MD '56, Internal Medicine 2005 Truman O. Anderson Jr. '50, MS '52, PhD '55, MD '60, Res '61, Preventative Medicine– Microbiology 2004 Edward J. Hertko '52, MD '54, Internal Medicine 2003 Robert W. Williams '56, MD '58, Surgery 2002 Al L. Watne '50, MD '52, MS '56, Res '58, Surgery 2001 Louis F. Scaramella, MD, Res '60, Otolaryngology 2000 James A. McDermott, MD '63, Res '66, Psychiatry 1999 Marilyn T. Miller '56, MD '59, Res '64, MS '66, Ophthalmology 1998 G. William Arends, MD '40, Family Practice Robert J. Jensik, MS '38, MD '39, Res '48, Surgery 1997 Gloria Jackson Bacon, MD '62, PhD '84, Family Practice 1996 Robert A. Fantus, MD '39, Psychiatry Stuart S. Roberts '53, MD '55, MS '56, Surgery Philip Thorek '28, MD '31, Surgery 1995 Stanley G. Rousonelos '48, '50, MD '52, Family Practice 1994 Alex S. Tulsky, MD '34, Obstetrics & Gynecology I L L INOI S MEDICINE | 41 PHOTO: SUSAN REICH

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