L. ELIZABETH BRODMAN

BRODMAN--Dr. L. Elizabeth B. November 23, 1918 - October 19, 2015. Adored mother, spouse and sister, compassionate and ground breaking physician, died at home in Stamford, Connecticut, early in the morning on October 19, 2015, having gracefully witnessed the worst and exemplified the best changes in America in the last one hundred years. Named after her ancestors, she was born Lille Elizabeth Beekley on November 23, 1918, two years before women got the right to vote, on a farm in Glendale, Ohio, to a family that traces its history to the settlement of Greenwich, Connecticut in 1640, and participated in the American Revolution. She was the courageous oldest of five sisters. When Elizabeth was just seven years old, her mother died of pneumonia. Unable to care for all five siblings, their father placed Elizabeth and next oldest, Ruth, in Bethany Home, run by the Episcopal Sisters. Eventually, by high school, both girls returned to live with their father and adored paternal grandmother, her Grammar, with whom Elizabeth shared a bed. At Glendale High School, ever focused and self-defined, Elizabeth took up the trombone and also played on the basketball team. She graduated high school in a class of sixteen students. In the late 1930s, Elizabeth entered Miami University in Ohio, arriving with a wardrobe she had sewn herself. She graduated from college with honors in biology. She then attended the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine where she worked at night as a laboratory technician. She was one of two women in her 1945 graduating class of 86. During her clinical years in medical school, when the class was divided between medicine and surgery, she pitched in the softball games. The year Elizabeth graduated medical school was the first year Harvard Medical School admitted women. Had she not met and married her future husband in medical school, Dr. Harold Brodman, who pursued her with zeal, Elizabeth likely would have spent life as a doctor helping children in the 3rd world. Instead, she began her medical practice and became a mother all at once. There is a lovely photograph documenting this time, of Elizabeth in cap and bursting gown, evidencing her joy. Soon after the photo was taken, Elizabeth, just six and one half months pregnant with twin boys, went into precipitous labor; it was the last day of her State Board examinations. But with the seeming ease and determination she showed throughout her life, Elizabeth completed the exam and then went to St. Francis Hospital in Columbus, where her sons Charles and Richard were born. Eight years later she gave birth to her daughter, Louise. In those years, Dr. Elizabeth Brodman continued work as a physician, juggling parenthood, always finding time for her children. A talented painter, she also found time to study at the Arts Students League in New York with Reginald Marsh. Then, when her sons went off to college and her daughter was a bit more independent, she took a residency in Anesthesiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and following, continued work full time as an attending and associate professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. There, she created the pediatric anesthesia specialty and became assistant professor of pediatrics and the clinical director of the Department of Anesthesia. She was perfectly suited for pediatrics, she loved children, would compassionately ready her young patients for surgery, and comfortingly allay their fears. Returning in later years to her core desire to help those without resources, Dr. Brodman volunteered with her husband to work in third world countries, giving anesthesia for the needy and teaching foreign physicians in their own lands, using materials available there to teach new techniques. In 1972 she worked at the Avicenna Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan; in 1975 in Surakarta and Malang, Java; in 1991 in Hangchou, China and in 1992 at the Lutheran Hospital on the West Bank in Israel. In Afghanistan Dr. Brodman executed and taught the central venous monitoring technique, the first such procedure in central Asia. In China and Israel she was especially fond of the work, correcting facial deformities of children to give them a new chance in life. In 1995 at her 50th medical school reunion, Dr. Brodman was given the Distinguished Alumni Award for the Class of 1945. Dr. Brodman was a respected member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the New York State Society of Anesthesiologists and the International Anesthesia Research Society. In addition, she authored and co-authored numerous communications in reviewed journals as well as several books, book chapters, review articles and abstracts. Dr. Brodman retired from medicine at age 76, as she said, "before she made any mistakes." She would have liked to have died with her boots on, practicing medicine. Never liking to be inactive, she returned after retiring from medicine to studying painting with the Arts Students League at the Vytlacil Campus in Sparkill, NY. Always a deep sorrow, Elizabeth was predeceased by her son Charles in 1977 when he was 31, a heart breaking loss for the family which Elizabeth held together with nothing short of grace, love, and her astonishing strength of will. A year later, Elizabeth suffered another terrible loss, her greatest confidant and friend, her sister Midge, died in a car accident. Again Elizabeth did not let loss, though ever present, define her; she quietly, compassionately, and lovingly persevered. Elizabeth B. Brodman is survived by her devoted and adoring family: her husband of almost 72 years, Dr. Harold Brodman, a general surgeon, her son Dr. Richard Brodman, a cardiothoracic surgeon, her daughter, Louise, an architect, her granddaughter, Alexandra, a Nassau County Assistant District Attorney, and their spouses, as well as Hero and Harley - poodles who brought some light hearted play to Elizabeth in her last years. The most generous of souls, an environmentalist before the word became known, a courageous and fun loving adventurer who canoed white water and traveled the world with the desire to help others, a painter who loved the beauty of the natural world as well as the wonders of scientists and artists, a loving mother and spouse, Elizabeth made everyone better for having known her. Despite the sorrows she suffered over her remarkable life, she made everything seem effortless, and joyful. She lived by her own expectations and interests. She loved and was loved.