Cindy Lange-Kubick: Compassionate doctor sees the world in Lincoln
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
Eighteen months ago, when Ivan Golotin got too sick to go to his doctor, his doctor started going to him.
Up to the third floor of a brick apartment on J Street, to a living room crowded with plants and family and memories of the country Ivan called home before coming to America in 1998.
Ivan didn’t speak English.
The doctor didn’t speak Russian.
But Dr. Dave Paulus would study the old man with white hair that stood up straight above thick white brows, the man whose heart was failing and legs didn’t work, the man who had been sent to Stalin’s Gulag for loving God and had gone on to marry and work and raise seven children.
The doctor always asked the same question, his own brow knitting with concern.
“How are you feeling, Ivan?“
And one of Ivan’s daughters would always translate his one word answer.
“Good.”
“He always say ‘Good,’” says Katrina Ponte, the youngest daughter. “He never complained.”
Katrina came to the newspaper two weeks ago. She asked about placing an ad to thank the man who took such good care of her papa.
People were always surprised when they heard a doctor went to care for her father in his apartment, Katrina says.
In Russia, doctors made house calls. Here, they didn’t expect it.
“Each time when Dr. Paulus came for home visit, my dad look at him and smile. He’s so happy to see him.”
And last month, a tall, thin man with size 15 feet and a heart to match went to his patient’s funeral.
The service was in Russian, and Ivan’s children each spoke, a translator turning the words to English.
Katrina remembers what the doctor told her.
“It’s been a privilege to know Ivan.”
Friday morning, Katrina sits beside her mother at the People’s Health Center on North 27th Street, where Dr. Paulus works.
Her mother, Nadezhda, Nadia for short, has a check-up.
She walks slowly, bundled in a sweater and thick gray stockings, a white scarf wrapped around her head in the style of old Russian women.
It’s been just three weeks since she lost Ivan. Almost 52 years married and 41 grandchildren.
Her mother thinks Dr. Paulus looks like her Uncle Alexander, Katrina says, smiling. The shape of his face, and his frame — so tall, so skinny.
Nadia wonders if maybe, somehow, they are related. If some of her people escaped to Germany, where Dr. Paulus’ ancestors came from.
On the wall of the waiting room is a round painting, with words at the bottom: We are enriched by the people of the world.
Dr. Paulus came to Lincoln 10 years ago from Iowa, where he had a family practice. When this clinic for underserved and uninsured opened, he became its medical director.
There are three doctors now and two nurse practitioners and a long list of patients waiting to get in.
He has taken seven medical mission trips, four to Ecuador and three to Guatemala. But the world comes to him here, too. Vietnam. Sudan. Mexico. Bosnia. Honduras. Colombia. Iraq. Ukraine. Iran. Russia.
His medical assistant has warned him about Katrina’s visit to the paper.
He doesn’t want the attention, but it will be good for the clinic, Millie Byron says, taking Nadia’s blood pressure and temperature.
Elvira Radionova, a medical translator, turns the figures into Russian. She has watched Dr. Paulus work before.
“Patients need a heart,” she says. “That side is so big in him.”
The door opens and a tall man walks in, long legs folding onto a small stool.
“I hope you’re OK with this,” Katrina says. “I don’t know how to express so much what you mean to us.”
“It goes both ways,” the 53-year-old doctor says. “This is my job. I love what I do.”
Over time, patients become his friends. He watched this family care for their father around the clock in the small, third-floor apartment.
For Christmas, they baked him a beautiful cake. They shared stories of Russia, and their faith with him. And the doctor, whose faith is strong, listened.
Now he opens the chart, leaning forward toward the old woman in the white scarf, his brow knitting with concern.
“How are you feeling, Nadia?”
“She’s getting really weak every day,” Elvira translates. “She’s not able to walk well.”
“Are you having a hard time sleeping?”
“She doesn’t complain.”
The doctor asks more questions.
He listens to her heart beating under a heavy sweater, feels her ankles over her thick stockings.
“Are you staying with Katrina now? Have you moved out of your apartment?”
“She feels better when she stays where she was with Ivan.”
The doctor sees it happen. One spouse dies and the other begins to fade.
Medicine doesn’t have a cure for that.
But sometimes words help.
“Tell her I miss Ivan, too.”
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
Post Your Comment
Standards and RulesYour posted comment will appear after it has been approved.
Frequently asked questions about story commenting.
Um, rather than UN-deserved, didn't you mean UNDER-served? I think that maybe everyone deserves health care. "
Eric Bigham wrote on April 6, 2008 11:42 am: