From Farm Boy to Family Physician – Michael J. Slavin, MD By Michael Slavin, Jr. As a young boy, my dad never dreamed of becoming a doctor. He spent time in the field picking crops, playing baseball, climbing trees, swimming in the ditch that ran by the family farm, helping his father at the family gas station, listening to the Tigers on the radio, living the idyllic farm boy life. The exuberance and innocence of youth are sometimes tempered by tragedy, however, and such was the case for Michael Slavin and his eight siblings. At age 47, Sergeant Stanley Slavin finally succumbed to wounds sustained fighting in World War II and left a 10-year-old Michael fatherless. Michael considered joining the priesthood, completing his studies at the seminary in Saginaw, but life changed again when Eleanor Slavin passed away at the age of 49, and a now 18-year-old Michael and his eight siblings were parentless. The older siblings took turns caring for the younger, and as tragedy befell another branch of the family, they also took turns caring for a quadriplegic cousin who had lost both of his parents and all his siblings.
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The experience of caring for this cousin inspired Michael to care for others, so much so that he abandoned a desire to teach mathematics and changed his college career path to medicine. Without parents or scholarship, Michael paid for college and medical school by taking out loans and by working any job he could find: Jarring pickles at a pickle factory, landscaping at a cemetery, working demolitions for the county road commission and joining the U.S. Air Force. Things had not gotten easier by then, but after finding his lovely young wife, Mary, he now had a partner with which to share his life’s joys and burdens. All physicians take up the responsibility of caring for their fellow man, but few have done so with the level of dedication and compassion that have defined my Dad’s career. Anyone who has met him at any point between the early days of his private practice to his role as Medical Director would have met the same person. He has always been the man who put everyone else’s needs before his own. He has always been the man who focused on his family, his patients and his colleagues before himself. Early in his career if it meant staying up all night delivering a baby and then going directly into a 12 hour day at the office, he would do it without a complaint. Later in his career, if it meant staying up until 3 a.m. to prep for a 7 a.m. meeting and then head to another 12 hour day at the office, he would do that without a complaint too. Though he retired last year, I believe I can say without hyperbole that he has had a significant and lasting impact on the quality of medical care in Saginaw. Because he has spent his life doing what he loves, caring for people, he would never in a million years ask for gratitude or even think it was due. That is exactly the reason that I ask you now to find a way to thank him. Dad’s email is mjslavin@chartermi.net and I know he’d love to hear from you. On behalf of our family, thank you!
