Dr. Howard Epstein
CJN Photo / MICHAEL C. BUTZ
Dr. Howard Epstein stands beside his Beechcraft Bonanza near the Cuyahoga County Airport runway. Epstein is a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight, which provides charitable transportation to patients demonstrating hardship.
Posted: Monday, March 25, 2013 9:00 am
Michael C. Butz
CJN Staff Reporter
In January, Theresa Palleschi underwent a bowel surgery at Cleveland Clinic.
Palleschi, 59, lives in Brentwood, N.H., a small town about 16 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. She was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1996 and had a kidney removed by a doctor an hour’s drive away in Massachusetts.
That same doctor would subsequently perform 12 colectomies and two ileostomies on Palleschi before retiring three years ago.
“I have issues with food, obviously,” she said. “My last surgery was in 2007, and I was doing OK but struggling. Then, in December (2011), I had issues.”
With no nearby doctor to treat her, Palleschi turned to Cleveland Clinic, where she’d visited once before in 2004. Tests were performed and surgery was discussed, but out of anxiety, Palleschi put off an operation.
“Then, by December (2012), I couldn’t put it off any longer,” she said. “The way I was living was pretty awful.”
Her time and treatment at Cleveland Clinic were a success, Palleschi said, noting that one of the doctors she’s most thankful for is Dr. Howard Epstein.
But there’s a twist: Epstein, a rheumatologist, neither performed Palleschi’s surgery nor treated her condition.
Instead, on his own time and on his own dime, Epstein flew Palleschi – anxious to return to her family and reluctant to fly commercially due to her health – halfway home, to Ithaca, N.Y., where she was picked up by another volunteer pilot and taken back to New Hampshire.
“The fact that he went out of his way and opened up his schedule to take me home ... I don’t even know him, but that’s what he did for me,” she said. “That was just an amazing gift that man gave to me. I’m still overwhelmed by it.”
Interest in medicine
Epstein, 59, was born in University Heights. His “pioneer” parents moved their family to Pepper Pike in 1957 – “those were the days when no one believed there was anything east of Green Road” – from where Epstein attended Orange schools and later Hawken School.
During his latter years in high school, Epstein volunteered as a weekend orderly in the department of surgery at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, where he started to develop an interest in medicine. When it came time to do a senior project in May 1971, Epstein sought to build on that interest.
“You’d develop a proposal you’d give to your school adviser on how you’d like to spend the month,” he said. “So, I went to the department of surgery and said, ‘I have this senior project, and I’d like to do it on something medically related. Is there an opportunity for me?’
“They thought about it, and they got back to me and said, ‘We could train you how to be a technician that helps the scrub nurses in surgery,’ and that’s what they did,” said Epstein, adding that then became his summer job through college and part of medical school. “During summers, when others were on vacation, I was a scrub technician. I was the person that handed instruments to the surgeon, I kept the operating room moving, stuff like that,” he said.
Building his résumé
Epstein earned a biology degree in 1975 from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. before returning home to attend medical school at Case Western Reserve University.
In 1982, he completed a two-year internal medicine internship at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas – connected to and affiliated with Parkland Memorial Hospital, of John F. Kennedy fame – before again returning home, this time for an internal medicine residency at Mt. Sinai.
“It felt like I was coming home, it was great,” said Epstein, referring to Mt. Sinai. “It really was an incredibly special place because even though it technically was a community hospital, it had such a high level of care and such an amazing esprit de corps, it was truly a gem for our community.”
Epstein subsequently completed a fellowship at University Hospitals under the direction of Dr. Roman Moskowitz, who headed the rheumatology department. After that, he spent 10 years as an assistant professor of medicine at CWRU and working at University Hospitals.
Why rheumatology?
“I fainted at the sight of blood,” Epstein said, jokingly. “When I told my mother I was going into rheumatology, she said, ‘Rheumatology? I didn’t send you to medical school to go into hotel management.’”
On a more serious note, Epstein explained that he knew as early as medical school that internal medicine was something he wanted to do.
“Rheumatology, being a specialty within internal medicine, involves taking care of people with chronic conditions,” he said. “It was the long-term relationships and the interaction with patients that really drew me to the field.”
Joining Cleveland Clinic
In 1995, Epstein both became president of the Northeastern Ohio chapter of the Arthritis Foundation and started a new chapter in his career by joining Cleveland Clinic. He spent 10 years at the Independence Family Health Center before moving to his current office at the Beachwood Family Health Center.
Dr. Abby Abelson, Cleveland Clinic Department of Rheumatic and Immunologic Diseases chair, has known Epstein since both were in medical school.
“He’s an impressively dedicated physician, and he’s a wonderful colleague,” said Abelson, a member of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood. “He’s a really excellent and bright rheumatologist, and he’s a role model to all of us in his dedication to the community.”
In recent years, Epstein has added administrative duties to his resume as assistant medical director for Cleveland Clinic’s employee health plan – which affords him a role in rewarding the medical center’s more than 40,000 worldwide employees for “good, healthy behaviors ... and meeting healthy targets,” he said.
“He’s admired for his administrative capabilities in taking on this role in our employee health plan,” Abelson said. “He’s done a really impressive job. Everything he does, he does impressively.”
Sky is the limit
Years earlier, Epstein developed an interest in flying.
“My history of flying circles back to my days at Mt. Sinai, the summer between the end of high school and beginning of college,” said Epstein, mentioning Dr. Sidney Cohen, a urologist who was also a pilot.
“I talked with him in the course of seeing him around. He was a very gracious, warm guy, and kind of got me interested (in flying),” Epstein said. “I decided I’d take the money I’d earned from my work at Mt. Sinai and take flying lessons, which I did, and I got my private pilot’s license the spring of my freshman year of college.”
Epstein flew “just a little bit” through college and medical school, but then stayed grounded for more than 20 years. Then, in 1999, he decided to change that.
“I remember this very clearly, I was driving across the Valley View bridge on a Saturday morning going to a clinic. It was a gorgeous day and I could see all the way downtown, and I said to myself, ‘You know, I’ve been doing this long enough and I’m comfortable with what I’m doing – I think I’m going to start flying again,’” he said. “So, after clinic, I got in my car and drove up to Burke Lakefront Airport not knowing what I’d find – I figured there must be a flight school there – and that was the first time I’d gotten in an airplane again after all that time.”
Epstein then took the classes needed to gain his certification, and in 2001, he purchased a Beechcraft Bonanza. For years, he used it mostly for recreational purposes, but about four years ago that changed.
“I was at a pilot-training seminar and there were these little postcards that described the Angel Flight organization and the opportunities to volunteer for them,” he said. “I took one and thought ‘Gee, this is really a nice way to give back,’ so I filled out the necessary forms and started doing some volunteer work for them.”
Flying for others
Angel Flight provides charitable transportation to ambulatory patients who demonstrate financial hardship and are traveling to and from medical treatment. The Virginia Beach, Va.-based nonprofit has five regional offices and a nationwide network of about 10,000 pilots.
MaryJane Sablan, who triages patient requests and dispatches them to volunteer pilots for Angel Flight Mid-Atlantic, described Epstein as dedicated and generous.
“His involvement is priceless,” she said. “I don’t know how I managed without him.”
One instance in which Sablan said Epstein went “above and beyond” involved an Ohio child who’d been camping in Virginia but needed to return home.
“The pilot taking the trip out of Virginia wasn’t comfortable with the forecast and canceled the trip, leaving the camper to stay the night and hope the forecast would improve to go home the following day, providing the pilot’s schedule was free to try again,” she said. “Dr. Epstein made the command decision that he would fly all the way to northern Virginia to pick up the camper and fly him all the way back home to Ohio.”
Epstein was comfortable with both his ability to handle the flight and his plane’s ability to handle the potential weather, Sablan said.
“His response when I asked him, ‘Are you sure you want to do all of that flying?’ was something to the effect of ‘We have to get that child home, we can’t just leave him stranded,’” she said. “That’s how Dr. Epstein feels about all the patients he flies. He takes pride in everything he does and makes sure everyone flown has the best flight he can provide them.”
For all of his efforts, and for donating the most time among Angel Flight’s other Ohio pilots last year, Epstein was named the 2012 Ohio Angel Flight Pilot of the Year.
Epstein said he’s simply glad he’s been able to help.
“Not only do I love flying, but I also view flying as a privilege,” he said. “To give back in a positive way like this – that’s what’s really rewarding for me.”
For some time, Abelson admitted, she had no idea Epstein participated in Angel Flight.
“Someone just mentioned it to me. I was just so impressed,” she said. “You see he’s living the principle of tikkun olam in everything he does. He’s really selfless in his devotion to others, both in his practice and in the community – and in the Jewish community.”
Regarding the latter, Epstein, who lives in Pepper Pike with his partner of 27 years, Gregg Levine, is a Menorah Park board member and chair of its Aging Resources Committee. Epstein also is a board member at Temple-Tifereth Israel in Beachwood, where he’s helped organize the Shabbat Cafe.
One woman’s ‘angel’
Palleschi, whose Cleveland Clinic physician is Dr. Feza Remzi, Department of Colorectal Surgery chair, and whose January surgery was performed by Dr. Jean Ashburn, responded so well to her treatment that she was discharged that Thursday instead of that Sunday.
However, the return flight she’d booked for Sunday through Angel Flight Northeast, which covers New Hampshire, couldn’t be rescheduled because no pilots were available.
On top of that, the 5-foot-6-inch Palleschi – who weighs only 87 pounds due to her condition – had collected 16 pounds of fluid in her ankles and feet, making it difficult to walk and leaving her fearful of flying commercially.
“Finding myself in that situation that far away was really scary,” she said.
Palleschi spent that Thursday night in the Cleveland Clinic Guesthouse anxious and alone, but later learned that Angel Flight Northeast had contacted Angel Flight Mid-Atlantic in hopes of accommodating her situation.
“Dr. Epstein called me Friday to tell me he’d come get me,” Palleschi said. “He came to the guesthouse to pick me up; he didn’t even make me go to the airport. It was pretty amazing to me.”
They departed from Cuyahoga County Airport on that Saturday – before a heavy snowfall that Palleschi felt would’ve kept her in Cleveland several days longer.
In the end, Palleschi described Epstein’s help as “something I’ll never forget.”
“People today, they’re very busy, they’re into themselves, they’re on their phones, their iPads, their email and everything. But this man, who I didn’t even know, this man picked me up and took me home when I needed to get home,” Palleschi said, overcome with emotion. “He was a gift from heaven, an angel sent from God. I’ll be eternally grateful.”
Dr. Howard Epstein / Quick look
AGE: 59
RESIDENCE: Pepper Pike
SYNAGOGUE: The Temple-Tifereth Israel
INTERESTING NOTE: Involved with The Musical Theater Project, a nonprofit whose mission is to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of the American musical through programs that educate as well as entertain people of all ages.
Story, Photos, Video: http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com
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