Brooklyn Beginnings

About the Book

2022 REVISED EDITION

Helicopter evacuations, teaching West Bank Arab nursing students, life and death medical decisions, aging Holocaust survivors, heart-breaking ethical decisions -- Brooklyn Beginnings immerses the reader in the life stories of Dr. Michael Gordon who helped forge contemporary Geriatrics in his adopted Canada. His Brighton Beach childhood, his initially quiescent Jewish roots, and a unique Lithuanian and Scottish interface profoundly inspired Gordon’s personal and professional journey. From his early wanderings through Europe to his Scottish medical education, through Eastern European travels and his Israeli immigration, with its associated military service and Holocaust survivor exposure, Gordon’s arrival in Canada was a culmination of his personal challenges.

He drew on his life experiences to help his patients, their families and medical trainees for more than fifty years. Among the life-altering experiences in this personal reflection are: experiencing Israel’s Six Day War from within an Arab country; confronting the U.S. Selective Service and the Vietnam War; being a physician in the Israeli Air Force; engaging in clinical and educational activities within the Arab world; and fulfilling a seminal professional and educational role as a geriatrician and ethicist. The complex human condition is engagingly and warmly presented against the profound challenges of health and disease.

About the Author

Dr. Michael Gordon: born in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. I moved to Dearborn Michigan as a child as my father worked as a civilian engineer for the American Department of Defense. I moved back to Brooklyn with my family at the end of the Second World War, and lived in the small one-bedroom apartment with my maternal grandmother, sister and parents. I attended public schools and attended Brooklyn Technical High School with the hope of following in my father’s footsteps. I started Brooklyn College and in my third year took a six-month trip to Europe where I met a group of Danish Medical Students and at the same time finished reading A.J. Cronin’s book The Citadel and Paul de Kruif’s Microbe Hunters. By the time I returned home I decided to change my plans to Medicine in place of Engineering. I wanted to travel and was so enthralled with Europe that I jumped at the chance to attend the University of St. Andrew’s Medical School, attending the Dundee campus. Medical school was followed by training in Scotland, Israel, Boston, Montreal and then when I returned to Israel to live, accepted a position at the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. I returned to Canada with my wife and family in 1973 and ended up on staff at Toronto’s Mt. Sinai and Baycrest Hospitals. As a University of Toronto faculty member I was able after many years of practice to pursue a Master’s degree in Medical Ethics. Since then as a medical school academic physician, teacher and writer, I have given many lectures and seminars. I have authored a number of books and a myriad of articles on subjects in Eldercare, Medical Ethics and observations on the challenges of life in a world and profession that is constantly changing. I am now retired and spend my time writing, enjoying music, watching the birds in my front and back gardens and engaging with our four house cats and two feral cats that inhabit our back porch. I am fortunate to witness the growth and development and accomplishments of my four children and their progeny. Michael Gordon, MD, FRCP, MSc. (medical ethics) Toronto, 2022