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Remembering Dr. Ned Chalat WCMSSM President 1974-1975
Obituary Written By Nancy Chalat-Noaker
Dr. Ned Chalat of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, died Feb. 5, 2021 at the venerable age of 95. As a life-long res- ident of the Detroit area, a practicing physician and active leader in many civic organizations, Dr. Chalat had a profound impact on the community and his family.
His legacy includes more than
50 years as a practicing Ear, Nose and Throat Physician in downtown Detroit, where much of his time was devoted to inner city residents. He was also a revered Clinical Professor of Otolaryngology at Wayne State University School of Medicine and was credited for his pioneering re- search on transplanting eardrums.
Dr. Chalat believed that a physi- cian’s role extended beyond treating individual patients. He wrote “It has long been my feeling that we as phy- sicians have never sufficiently exer- cised our potential in facing society’s real difficulties.”
In that regard, Dr. Chalat’s com- mitment was unwavering. During the Detroit riots in 1968, he refused to abandon his patients and drove through police barriers to make rounds at Harper Hospital. During the AIDs crisis, he trained as a Red Cross instructor and berated doctors who refused to treat those patients. And, as a member of the editorial board for the Detroit Medical News, he wrote a series of essays promoting
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awareness about domestic violence, poverty and civil rights. He took every opportunity, in writing and in lectures, to prod members of his pro- fession to help address those issues.
Dr. Chalat inherited his empathy for the underserved from his father who exemplified the grit and ideal- ism of the immigrants who arrived in America at the turn of the cen- tury. Jacob Chalat, a young Jewish refugee, arrived in Detroit in 1910 after escaping from a Russian prison camp. Barely out of his teens, Jacob graduated from Central High School and then enrolled at the University of Michigan Medical School. He served as a physician in the United States Army, 1917-1918. Upon his return, Jacob turned down more lucrative job offers to work for the Detroit City Physicians Office making house calls and tending to the poor.
Eventually, as Jacob’s own health deteriorated, his young son, Ned, accompanied him on house calls.
As recently as this year, Ned Chalat claimed that his exposure to a variety of epidemics during those house calls made him immune from the Coro- na virus pandemic. “I’m a doctor, I should be out there helping,” he told his daughter in a recent phone call.
Dr. Chalat followed his father into medicine, attending the University
of Michigan for his B.S., Zoology, in 1945, and to the University of Mich- igan Medical School for his M.D., 1948. He did his internship and res- idency in otolaryngology at Harper Hospital. In 1952 he took a fellowship at the esteemed Lempert Institute in New York City. In 1953, he served
in the United States Air Force as an Air Force surgeon with the rank of Captain (1953 -1955) at Parks AFB in Livermore, California.
Dr. Chalat’s staunch ideals were recognized in every organization
he joined, as evidenced by a raft of leadership positions over his lifetime. Dr. Chalat served as president of the Wayne County Medical Society, Chief of the Ear, Nose and Throat Depart- ments at Harper and Sinai Hospitals, and held leadership positions at the Michigan Otolaryngological Society, the Michigan Chapter of American Medical Writers Association, the Detroit Academy of Medicine,
First Quarter 2021