Alberto Gedissman
MD, MMM, FAAP’s

By Silvia Ichar Interpretation by peggyedwards4@yahoo.com

Inexhaustible combatant in his desire to keep the community healthy, alerting it to epidemics, counseling and advocating for it in order to successfully serve it so that it may continue to evolve normally without great catastrophes. Always foreseeing irreparable facts, he alerts parents that more than violence, what will kill their children will be diseases related to their living habits: obesity, lack of exercise and eating poorly. Only CalOptima foresaw the obesity crisis, and recently, AltaMed.

He emigrated from Argentina a practicing physician, having done his residency in cardiology, thirsting for more knowledge in order to give more. He excelled in his studies and attained the degree of “Certified Physician Executive,” a distinction that only a few of the country’s doctors hold, after receiving his MMM (Masters in Medical Management at USC Marshall School of Business.) He is also a member of the “American College of Physician Executives” and is “Clinical Professor in Pediatrics” at the University of California, Irvine. In his vast professional trajectory dedicated to improve the quality of life for children, adolescents and their families, he has run the gamut, from Principle Investigator and Medical Director of the Almon Clinical Research dedicated to the research of medicine to treat complications from pediatric obesity, such as Medical Director of Ambulatory Services at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), and Executive Director of “Pediatric and Adolescent Comprehensive Care Medical Group (PACC) in CHOC, to president of the local chapter of “American Academy of Pediatrics,” a prestigious organization of which he is a “fellow” and was besides a member of his Committee on Communications for six years, and where he collaborates in writing recommendation related to children and mass communications. His activities to prevent juvenile violence led him to win prizes and awards from these and other organizations. His fight against pediatric obesity is in the same way leading him to a local, state and national award.

Presently he continues with his Wellness Center and his program to combat pediatric obesity and that of their families, as well as other investigative tasks collaborating with the faculty and students from the University of California, Fullerton, and beginning in November, as Director of Pediatric and Adolescent Obesity Programs for AltaMed.

His parents were children of Jewish Russian immigrants who immigrated to Argentina around 1903. They were born in Buenos Aires and were married in 1940. Dr. Albert Gedissman was born two years later and has a sister, Silvana, five years younger. “It seems my mother liked Italian names, that was why she called my sister Silvana and me Alberto. But she also liked movies, and that was the era of Alberto Sordi and Silvana Mangano,” he says playfully.

Gedissman was born in Buenos Aires on the street Guardia Vieja 3741, the same street where Carlos Gardel sang for the first time in a bar at the end of the block. He lived there to age 12, then moved to another house on the same block until he married.

Did your parents have a lot of family in the city?
My father was one of four brothers and two sisters; mom had five brothers and two sisters. On one side of the family there were 17 cousins, on the other eight. I have lovely memories of all of them but the family disintegrated a long time after the patriarchs died. I still see some of them, and needless to say the oldest are dying. My mother is the only survivor of all of her siblings; father is deceased. They called my father by his second name, Adolfo but his real name was Valodie, a nickname for Bladimiro which is in reality Volodia and not Valodie. I discovered this recently upon watching Russian movies, and I imagine whoever took note of it was a foreign emigrant and misspelled it. My mother, in spite of also coming from a Jewish Russian immigrant family, was named Manuela.

Where did you start your education?
At Florencio Escorta School on Francisco Acuña de Figueroa street, one or two blocks from Corrientes. I lived two blocks from the Abasto Market. I went to high school at Bartolome Mire also near the market, a spot where today there is an impressive shopping center, but at the time it was a spider’s web due to all the fruit and vegetables. I walked to school with the other boys and we would go through the market and watch the enormous spiders near the boxes of bananas. When I finished high school I immediately entered med school.

Why medicine?
Because I always wanted to be a doctor. I think my idol was Dr. Luis Camponovo, our family doctor. He was a professor of pharmacology and he wrote several books, he was a very famous doctor. My grandmother was diabetic and so he came to the house at least three or four times a month. In those days doctors made house calls.

Gedissman has a marked artistic inclination, he likes to draw, he loves photography, and he writes very well, articles of his are published in several medical publications, diaries, magazines, including PARA TODOS.
He never considered another career path as he always wanted to be a doctor. He got his degree when he was only 23.

Why were you such a good student?
I was a nerd. There was only one subject I didn’t take in December. I had all the summers free, and I always mixed fun with study, I never denied myself the opportunity to participate. Even now, at the most stressful times I combine entertainment with work. You only live once and if you lose it it’s lost.

The subject he didn’t take on time was Pharmacology taught by his family doctor, he felt he had to be the best. Pharmacology is the study of medicines and dosages, all which must be memorized and when he signed up to take it in December he decided to postpone it until March. “It ruined my summer because all I did was study. I wasn’t the best but I did well,” he says satisfied.

Where did you meet Monica?
On a beach at Mar del Plata. I was with a group of friends near the monument to Alfonsina Storni, and when I saw Monica it was love at first sight. We were only kids, she was 15 and I was 19.

Once their vacation was over, Gedissman and Monica returned to Buenos Aires and four and a half years later they were married, 43 years ago. “It was love at first sight for the two of us. We married in Buenos Aires soon after I got my degree because that’s the way we did it in those days. I started working at Alvear Hospital as a resident in cardiology and I was greatly disillusioned by my working conditions because I had to work at three and even four places to make enough to support us,” says the doctor. Gedissman felt that in spite of how much he had learned, he still had a lot to learn and the way things were going that would not be possible. So in 1967 the family immigrated to Chicago where he got a scholarship in infantile cardiology.

Why did you come to this country?
I had two options, here or Canada. These were the places where medical science was most advanced at the time. Today it is possibly Europe, Israel, all of the countries of the civilized world, but at that time the country with the greatest advances in medicine after the second world war was without a doubt the United States.

He wanted to be a cardiovascular surgeon but felt he did not have the disposition for it so he dedicated himself to cardiology. He got a scholarship in infantile cardiology and so he could remain in this country, he accepted a residence in pediatrics, it was 1970. The family had had their first child and Argentina was involved in the dirty war so they decided to stay and take the residency. “I finished the residency in pediatrics and I got a job at the University of Chicago. Our second daughter was born and Monica was diagnosed with “Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD” which causes one depression without exposure to the sun. I had a friend in California who introduced me to a pediatric friend who needed a partner. We came, we spoke, we associated and we were partners for the next seven years in pediatrics.

During that time Gedissman created, with Dr. Ana Nogales, the Center for Family Orientation in Orange County. They offer conferences to Latinos, guide and assist so they may become integrated in their new society. The doctor was involved with the children’s hospital and personnel scale. He separated from his partner and opened a private practice beside Western Medical Center of Santa Ana. Obstetricians started sending their newborns to his practice, triplicating its clientele immediately. He worked there a few years and then bought a medical condominium at the neighboring building remaining there until 1996.

“That year my father passed away and I needed a change. I associated myself with a medical group but I soon realized I couldn’t integrate myself to that type of medicine. Fortunately the Children’s Hospital needed someone to manage their clinics and he accepted being “Director of Ambulatory Services for CHOC and all of its clinics. “I worked there until its clinics were converted to communities and they got their own doctors,” says the doctor.

What did you do then?
Recognizing that the obesity problem is the most serious affliction affecting our society, I opened a center with programs for weight control. At the same time I was the President of the Academy for Pediatrics for the county, and during my term it won, for the first time, the prize for the best program in the country.

“While at the CHOC Hospital I realized that medicine has two worlds, one is scientific and vocational and the other is monetary. In this country health care is neither a science nor a vocation; it is a business. So I continued my education with a masters in Medical Administration with which the USC accepted me to the Executive Program,” says the doctor. He excelled in his studies and achieved the degree “Certified Physician Executive,” a distinction that only a few doctors in the country have obtained.

Tell me about your daughters
The oldest is Karen, next is Jasmine, and Romy is the youngest. Karen is very talented; she works for an important entertainment-training agency in Los Angeles. Jasmine studied at Denver University and has a master in communications; there she met her husband Kevin and they have two children: Sebastian 8 and Gabriel 7. The youngest is Romy, she married Cliff, they have a 6-year-old daughter named Summer. They live in Oregon. Presently we live alone in our apartment, but I am beside my fountain of life that is Monica.

The couple lived for many years in a very spacious home whose front was secured by an elegant iron grating, Monica’s pride. They shared their space generously with various organizations with the goal of raising funds for charities. “We didn’t want to be like a snail dragging its shell, because we saw how our parents struggled with theirs; that’s why we moved to this apartment that is large but not huge. We live here but we’re not emotionally attached to it. If we have to move anew, it won’t be so hard. Besides, we’re Jews, and the Jewish people always carry within them not knowing where they will end their days. The Diaspora talks about 5700 years of emigration and one carries that within,” he says convinced.

Where are you going next?
My goal is to continue to use the energy and knowledge I have to help the children of this generation who will live less than their parents due to this epidemic of obesity; because this will make them sick; they’re already sick, as we show in the work being done at the University of Fullerton. Professors and students evaluate what I do in my clinic and based on these facts we have demonstrated that in minority communities from southern California, 50% of children are sick with a condition called obesity. This is not a social or diet issue, it is a sickness. And of that 50%, 26% have some serious pathology doctors have yet to identify, and we know that within 5 to 15 years at the most, this pathology will be noisy when it can only be improved but not stopped. I want to dedicate my knowledge and what I have left of energy to generate some change before this becomes an unmanageable disaster.”

“We need to become aware that our future depends on these young people, because as seniors, societies have always been supported by their youth, and what I see is that 50% of Orange County’s population will be needy rather than helpful. In this county, one of four residents receives public assistance. There are three million inhabitants, in other words 700 to 800 thousand people depend on public assistance. So there are two aspects, the emotional or vocational, where I want to assist because that’s the coming generation and the other aspect is more utilitarian, which is to keep society moving forward because we need them,” he says worried.

What can we do?
Never lose sight of the end goal, don’t get distracted on the way. I don’t feel alone because there are many groups of people throughout the country who are working to do something about this problem and we luckily have a government, a leader, Obama, who knows very well that if we don’t do anything about our health problem we’re going nowhere. The medical business was a business where people were rewarded, we still reward people for healing and the President and his assistants want the rewards to be in preventing not curing. This is a critical change that must occur in this country so the country may survive. Capitalism will survive but without people there is no capitalism and if this focus is only rewarding the solution and not the prevention, we’re done for, because many people will die and we’ll have to pay for that. But we are many who see this, at least a sufficient number to start a movement. I want to recognize that the only group to recognize the problem in Orange County was CalOptima, they were visionaries and accepted my program. They see what I see. Now AltaMed has joined us. The reason there are not more followers is that medicine is a business and there isn’t a lot of money in obesity and much less for minorities.

Tell us about AltaMed.
I will work at the community clinic located at 1400 S. Main in Santa Ana, the community serving the Hispanic minority, the section fundamentally served by AltaMed, that is their mission. This clinic will include a program for obesity because the number of children with this handicap is great. We are remodeling the space within the clinic based on the necessities of the program I will guide, and that is an extension of what I am doing at my center. This program will be the pilot, and then it will be taken to clinics in Garden Grove and Anaheim. AltaMed is also administering clinics at the University of California, Irvine- UCI and the children’s clinic in Los Angeles.

What is your message for our readers?
Remind parents that the struggle for survival is not all that counts in their lives, but also to think about their children’s future. Many are distracted by what happens today and are not aware that they need to concentrate a little more on their children: emotionally, socially, educationally and look a little farther into their future. Don’t pay so much attention to their children’s physical and material necessities and give them more attention. Not only heath wise but as a whole, avoid the disintegration of the family. Monica and I have lived together for 43 years, we confronted obstacles and we shared immense happiness. She is the greatest thing I have; I adore my daughters and grandchildren who have given my life a new dimension. The family is the most important nucleus in the world. They have to fight to keep it united.

Dr. Gedissman has ascended to the highest pinnacle of his medical career administratively and humanely. His contributions are numerous as are his awards. But regardless of his great collection of credentials, the doctor only uses three acronyms: MD, medical doctor, FAAP (Fellow of American Academy of Pediatrics), MMM (Master in Medical Management.) The doctor doesn’t like to plan trips, but the expert on that subject is his inseparable partner who possesses the art of taking him by the hand all over the world. He profoundly enjoys all the arts and is always ready to give advice, lend a hand to who is in need, with a frank and friendly smile.