Wellington’s Medical Power Couple Plastic Surgeon Dr. Dov Eidelman And Cardiologist Dr. Rachel Eidelman If there’s a competition for champions of time management, the Eidelman family of Wellington could be the winners. The Doctors Eidelman — Dov and Rachel — both have busy practices in their fields, they’re involved in local nonprofits, and they’re raising two young children. Dr. Dov Eidelman — “Mr. Dr. Eidelman,” as some of his staff members call him — is a 46-year-old plastic surgeon affiliated with Plastic Surgery of Palm Beach. He has been with the practice since his arrival in the area back in 1999, about a year before he and his wife settled here. The practice has offices in Wellington, Palm Springs and Jupiter. Dr. Rachel Eidelman — “Mrs. Dr. Eidelman,” as she’s called by her patients — is a 42-year-old cardiologist who recently joined Bethesda Medical Associates, which has an office at Bethesda Health City in Boynton Beach and one in Wellington, which she shares with her husband. She specializes in non-invasive cardiology and has hospital privileges at Bethesda Memorial Hospital, JFK Medical Center and Wellington Regional Medical Center, and she has clinical appointments at Nova Southeastern University and Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. The Eidelmans have a son, Benjamin, who just turned 9 and finished third grade at Binks Forest Elementary School, and a daughter, Abby, 5, who will enter kindergarten in the fall. Dov and Rachel met in 1995, when he was chief resident in general surgery at 26
July 2012 |wellington the magazine|
the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. At the time, she was his student, but they didn’t start dating until later. “She was in her third year of school, completing electives to get an idea what specialty she wanted to go into,” he recalled. When Dov finished his residency the next year, he accepted a plastic surgery fellowship at Yale University. “She spent half her time going to Connecticut and spending time with me after that, and spent half her fourth year in electives at Yale, and then applied for a residency there, which she got,” he said. When both their programs were complete, they decided to settle in Florida. “I’d always wanted to live in Florida, so we agreed to get married in Texas (where she grew up) and then live in Florida,” he said. They were engaged in 1999 and married in 2000. After moving to Delray Beach, Rachel Eidelman enrolled in a cardiology fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach — but not until after a brief honeymoon. “We took a week off after we got married — and then we went right back to work,” Dov Eidelman recalled. “We were so excited, we had saved up all our miles from traveling between Texas and Connecticut and Florida, and our parents gave us the trip as their gift to us. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had a lot of fun.” Rachel had known her desire to study medicine from a young age. “As a child, I wanted to be a doctor for animals or for people,” she said. “My parents encouraged and supported my interests.”
Story by Chris Felker Photo by Abner Pedraza
During her education at Texas Lutheran University, she was awarded a research grant in nuclear cardiology. “I published this data prior to attending medical school,” she said. “This cultivated my interest in cardiology.” Since then, she has written five publications regarding clinical cardiology and research. In Miami Beach, she helped design and implement clinical research trials, many of them about and including women. “I became interested in focusing on the treatment of cardiovascular disease in women since there are very few women cardiologists,” she said. “But not to worry — I still see men!” Dov Eidelman was born in Barranquilla, Columbia and moved to New York with his family at age 10. He speaks Spanish fluently. He is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and concentrates on cosmetic surgery and breast reconstruction. He is a graduate of New York University and Albany Medical College, finished his general surgery residency at the University of Texas with plastic surgery training at Yale, where he was also chief resident. He studied under the guidance of internationally renowned surgeons, and his interest in education has continued. Since 2005, he has been a member of the teaching faculty for the JFK Medical Center residency program, and he was appointed last June as an affiliate assistant professor of biomedical science at FAU’s Schmidt College. He has also earned an appointment as clinical assistant professor at the University of Vermont School of Medicine. He does operations at his own