Dr. Marshall A. Freedman, one of the first doctors to specialize in gastroenterology in Colorado, passed away peacefully at his home on June 12, 2016. He was 95. Rabbi Brian Immerman officiated at the private family service. Feldman Mortuary made the arrangements.
Dr. Freedman’s family will hold a celebration of life service later this summer.
“He was a mentor and father figure to the many lives he touched over his 95 years,” they said. “Ever curious and caring about others, he brightened the lives of countless patients, colleagues, friends and family, and brought out the best in us.”
Dr. Freedman was born March 2, 1921, in Elizabeth, NJ, to Robert and Helen Burke Freedman. He grew up in the Great Depression, and this made an indelible imprint on his outlook.
As a teenager, he read Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis and decided to become a doctor in order to alleviate human suffering. Microbe Hunters by Paul de Cruif stimulated his fascination with learning and science.
Dr. Freedman attended high school at Baltimore City College in Baltimore, Md., and earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.
He served with the US Army in WW II and was promoted to captain.
Dr. Freedman married his first love, Betty Sue Borwick of Denver, on Aug. 16, 1947.
After the war, he did medical residencies at Mount Sinai in New York, Los Angeles County Hospital and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Dr. Freedman and his wife came to Denver in 1954.
He practiced internal medicine with a series of other doctors, was one of the first physicians in the state to specialize in gastroenterology, and helped pioneer the use of new diagnostic equipment that is now routine in the field.
Dr. Freedman trained doctors in gastroenterology and brought many young physicians into his practice.
Working with a laboratory manager at Rose Hospital, he co-founded Denver Clinical Labs, the first commercial, computer-operated laboratory for urinalysis and blood tests in Denver.
With his father Robert Freedman and partner Glenn Douthit, Dr. Freedman helped develop some of the first modern nursing homes in the city.
Dr. Freedman, a lifelong traveler and eclectic art collector, was a trustee at the Denver Art Museum during the construction of the North Building designed by Ponti and Sudler Architects in 1971. He was also on the board of Colorado Public Radio station KCFR.
A greenhouse cultivator of flowering plants and succulents, he gave hundreds of plants to patients and nurses at Denver’s VA Hospital, where he worked in the gastroenterology clinic for 25 years.
“He was an iconoclast and inveterate joke-teller,” the family said. “He visited hospital wards wearing old jeans, bright red suspenders and T-shirts with impolitic sayings.”
After retiring from private practice in his mid-70s, Dr. Freedman volunteered five days a week at the CU Health Sciences Center and was honored as outstanding clinical faculty member and volunteer of the year numerous times.
He worked at CU Health Sciences Center and the VA Hospital until age 94, “a testament to his intelligence, commitment and tenacity, and the respect and affection with which he was held by his peers,” the family said.
CU Health Sciences Center established an annual lecture in his name honoring young fellows in the department of gastroenterology.
Dr. Freedman is survived by Betty Freedman, his wife of 68 years; son Jonathan Borwick Freedman of Burlingame, Calif., and daughter Tracy Freedman of San Francisco; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
He was predeceased by his son Douglas Freedman in 1954.
Contributions may be made to the Division of Gastroenterology at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.
Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News
