Doctor's devotion makes the difference

A few years ago while visiting an amusement park, two panic-stricken children were stranded atop a Ferris wheel.

When they were finally freed, it was 10:30 at night. Their father knew whom to call.

''Can you see them?'' he asked Dr. Irvin Dunsky. The pediatrician met them at his Bond Hill office. Physically, the children had no need of his services. But the sight of Dr. Dunsky - quiet, gentle, never-changing - was enough to soothe their fears of heights and great, wide-open spaces.

Dr. Dunsky smiles at the memory. It was simply a part of his practice.

''This is the difference,'' he says softly, ''between care and devotion. They're devoted to me. I'm devoted to them.''

After 49 years, Dr. Dunsky is closing his practice, run from a nondescript brick house south of Swifton Commons.

His patients will move on to other deliverers of medical care. But they wonder whether they will ever again find such devotion.

Dunsky committed

But it is true that few modern patients will encounter a practice like his.

Atmosphere is part of it. No patient of Dr. Dunsky's will ever forget the stuffed owls that preside over the waiting area, the Bicentennial rug emblazoned with a bald eagle that threatens to overwhelm one wall, the fairy-tale ''World of Make Believe'' painting that entices every child.

Adults are a bit overwhelmed. Children find it fascinating. That's all Dr. Dunsky is after.

Children are royalty here, and ''Dr. Dunky'' as they sometimes call him, is their faithful servant. Besides late-night, post-Ferris wheel exams, Dr. Dunsky has often seen patients on Sundays, holidays and during evening hours.

He spends what, in the name of modern-day efficiency, seems amazing amounts of time with each patient. He'd spend more but he worries about their schedules. ''You have to be mindful that mothers have to pick up their other kids, that there may be baby sitters at home,'' he says.

Beyond matters of service and interior design, it is the utter commitment with which Irvin Dunsky has practiced medicine for 49 years that sets him apart.

His intense interest in children, in every bump and bruise they bring to him, elevates their own sense of esteem. He asks about everything, leaning forward and nodding at each fascinating detail.

Prescription for smiles

''You can leave your shoes on,'' he tells 11-year-old Neal Cross, who mounts the scales in rugged-looking high tops. ''They weigh 2 pounds. I've weighed them.''

He prescribes a special diet for one little girl, then tells her grandmother, ''Give her Jell-O, but not too much red Jell-O because you'll see red in her bowel movement and then you'll call me at 3 in the morning,'' he teases. ''And I don't advise green Jell-O because grandmothers don't like green.''

Every order he utters is carefully written down for the grandmother. Then he folds the paper and jauntily places it atop the little girl's head. She smiles.

Nobody leaves Dr. Dunsky's office without a laugh.

Tomorrow, Irvin Dunsky will leave the full-time practice of medicine the same way he entered it, with dedication, fascination and joy. He speaks of his profession with dignity. But he sees that things are changing, for doctors as well as patients. He knows that modern physicians will be better trained, but far less autonomous than ever before. He mourns the change.

''In the past when people looked at a doctor, they put their faith in the man in front of them,'' he says. ''They felt no one else was guiding his destiny, but that he was guiding theirs. My patients knew I wasn't going to be guided by anything other than the best I could do for them. Now that's being diluted.''

With Dr. Irvin Dunsky, everything was full-strength. ''They're devoted to me. I'm devoted to them,'' he says. Three generations of patients agree.

Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

Published June 29, 1996.