Max Cytryn, MD
It is with sorrow we inform you that our long-time and esteemed colleague, Max Cytryn, passed away February 2, 2009 at the age of 93.
Dr. Cytryn, a member of the NYU School of Medicine Class of 1938, had been affiliated with NYU for nearly 75 years!
A member of our faculty for decades, he influenced the education of thousands of students and cared for countless patients. He was especially proud of his more than 40 years of affiliation as an Attending Physician at the Cardiac Clinic at Bellevue.
He was described by a colleague as “a gentle and good man, who took excellent care of his patients, and who loved to teach, and to learn.”
Funeral services will be held on
Wednesday,
February 4 at 12 noon:
Schwartz Brothers-Jeffer Memorial Chapel,
11403 Queens Boulevard
Forest Hills - Queens New York 11375
Phone: (718) 263-7600
From Arthur C. Fox, MD
Dr. Max Cytryn, a long-term faculty member at Bellevue and NYU Hospitals, passed away on February 2, 2009.
Dr. Cytryn received his M.D. degree from New York University School of Medicine in 1938 and then served there for many years as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, teaching medical students and house staff at Bellevue and NYU’s Tisch Hospital. He also maintained an active private practice of Internal Medicine in Queens. He was a long-term member of the Staff of the Thursday Night Cardiac Clinic at Bellevue, the famous “T.N.C.C.” This was one of the first Cardiac Clinics in the United States and met in the early evening hours to accommodate people whose daytime employment otherwise precluded access to treatment of their heart disease.
The Clinic was staffed by outstanding attending cardiologists at Bellevue and NYU such as Charles Kossmann, Bertha Rader, Ludwig W. Eichna, Joseph Brumlik, Norman S. Wikler and many others. The medical residents and cardiac fellows worked closely with this unique faculty to provide expert cardiologic care and ready access to the advanced technical facilities at Bellevue and NYU Hospitals. Dr. Cytryn’s work at the T.N.C.C. and on the wards of Bellevue was a paradigm of the high-quality, dedicated and personalized patient care by the faculty and the generations of NYU medical students, residents and fellows who worked in the Clinic. This excellent Clinic provided the Bellevue patients and the staff with a structure for excellent, closely supervised long-term individualized care unique in a busy municipal hospital. It continues today.
Dr. Cytryn was a devoted and gentle clinician who treated his individual Bellevue Clinic patients for many years with the same quality of care he provided to those in his busy private practice and when he followed them during their care in Bellevue or NYU Hospitals in the exciting era of the development of diagnostic cardiac catheterization and surgery. He was an excellent clinician with a considerate demeanor who provided a fine example of the ideal practitioner of medicine to residents, fellows and students. They were always gratified to work with this dedicated physician who is best described by Chaucer’s familiar “and gladly would he learn and gladly teach.” All of us who were privileged to work with Max at Bellevue and at NYU were enriched by the experience.
We will miss this compassionate and devoted physician, and those of us who worked most closely with him will continue to remain enriched by the experience in the years to come.
From Manfred Blum, MD
Max Cytryn had an ever-present, genuine and warm smile. He was interested in his colleagues and above all in his patients. Max treated his patients with wisdom, skill, and personal concern — and they loved him. Max and I shared many patients. They demonstrated the depth of Max’ clinical acumen and the wide scope of his expertise as a cardiologist and as a general internist. He was a wonderful and dedicated teacher and an exemplary role model. Max personified compassion and excellence. I admired his humanity. We shall miss him.
From Frederick Feit, MD
He was the kindest, most supportive and most respectful physician I have ever encountered. I first met him at Thursday Night Cardiac Clinic at Bellevue, when I was a third year student. From my earliest days as an Attending Physician, despite my efforts to get him to call me “Fred”, he insisted on calling me Dr. Feit, despite the fact that I was more than 30 years his junior. There was a not a single time that he passed me in the corridor, when he didn’t stop to say hello, shake my hand and praise me for my work. He was a wonderful physician, great teacher and absolutely one of a kind. A Beautiful Man!
