by Joseph H. Radder
Someone once said “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”
Dr. Harry A. Sultz may not have heard that bit of wisdom early in life, but he certainly
has lived by it. “I’ve had some set-backs in life,” he said, “and have
had to re-invent myself periodically. Interestingly, each of the set-backs moved me in
another direction, usually better than the one I left.”
The worst of all of the set-backs he experienced happened over fifty years ago. He had
graduated from UB’s School of Dentistry in 1947 at the age of 23. Within two years,
he found his vision deteriorating and was told that he had a condition called conical
cornea. Wearing contact lenses corrected his vision and allowed him to practice his
profession until a fateful day in 1950. He was told his corneas were weakening and that he
had about a year before he would be unable to see at all. Easing the shock, the
opthalmologist said that corneal transplants could be performed and this procedure might
restore his sight.
This was the first time Harry Sultz turned lemons into lemonade by taking a year-long
anesthesiology residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hospitals.
Looking for a way to take advantage of his professional training that would not require
the precise vision of a dental practice, he learned that the Chief of Anesthesia at
Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh also began his career as a dentist and directed a
medical residency program for dentists. Graduating from that residency program would lead
him into a new career, but first he had a huge hurdle to overcome. “By the time I had
finished the program, both of my corneas had ruptured. I was totally blind for three
months,” he said, “then, after waiting some time for a donor, I had a successful
corneal transplant in New York City.” The transplant in his other eye, however, was
not successful because he developed an infection. That was before antibiotics. “Today
it would be cured quickly.”
Dr. Sultz then opened a unique dental practice for handicapped and intractable patients.
With a staff of dentists, nurses and nurse anesthetists, he served a wide variety of
disabled children and adults for almost ten years. During that time he was increasingly
involved with groups serving people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis, mental
retardation and cerebral palsy.
“An active advocate for disabled patients, Sultz was a founder of the Niagara
Frontier Vocational Rehabilitation Center and one of its first board presidents. He
initiated and served as the first chairman of the Buffalo Citizens Committee for the
Employment of the Handicapped. “ I got to know Dr. William Mosher, the Erie County
Health Commissioner. He encouraged me to get a degree in public health and work for him in
the Health Department. I was ready. It was time to pick up my ball and bat and move on.
Furthermore it would combine my clinical and community interests, so I took Dr.
Mosher’s advice and completed a master’s degree in public health at Columbia
University in 1962.
Dr. Sultz joined the Erie County Department of Health as its Research Director, and the
faculty of the UB School of Medicine as an instructor in Social and Preventive Medicine.
He taught epidemiology and the organization of health care to medical and graduate
students, and was rapidly promoted to full professor. He was recruited to become Dean of
the School of Health Related Professions in 1979. After seven years as Dean, he returned
to the School of Medicine and resumed his role as director of its program of Health
Services Research. He was awarded over eight million dollars in grants and contracts
during his caree, to study health care or to test new ideas for improving it. Of his
several honors, he was proudest of the Herman M. Biggs award by the New York State Public
Health Association in 1994 for lifetime achievement.
In 1997, Dr. Sultz initiated UB’s widely acclaimed Mini-Medical School and directed
it until 2002. This program teaches lay persons interested in biology about health care
and the human body.
A native of Buffalo, Sultz was born in 1924. He went to school 30 and was active in sports
at Lafayette High School where he earned letters in football, track and crew.
Remembering his youth, his most vivid memories are of the Boy Scouts. “I was very
active in scouting, as were my closest friends,” he said. “Camping and scouting
were big things back then. Those were happy days.”
Harry Sultz and Beatrice Kaiser were married in 1946. Their son, Jerald, is a plastic and
reconstructive surgeon in Amherst, and their daughter, Marne, who worked for publishing
houses in Boston, now lives in Little Compton, Rhode Island. The Sultzes have two
grandchildren, Rebecca, age 7, and Laney, 18 months.
As he enters his eightieth year, Dr. Sultz is Professor Emeritus, School of Medicine and
Biomedical Sciences at the University of Buffalo and Dean Emeritus of its school of Health
Related Professions. He is also an active Adjunct Professor in UB’s School of Law.
He just finished the fourth edition of his latest book, the Jones and Bartlett publication
Health Care USA. Sultz is also negotiating a weekly radio program patterned after the Mini
Medical School. It will strive to take much of the mystery out of the health care system
and make listeners better informed health care consumers.
His list of positions, both professional and in community service, his research projects,
consultation assignments, a list of his writings including a shelf-full of books and his
honors, fill seven single-spaced pages.
Do you know anyone who has made more lemonade with bigger lemons?
Joseph H. Radder, a free-lance writer and regular contributor to Living Prime
Time, is the author of a new book, a fictional biography of a young Jew named Jesus,
“Young Jesus, the missing years.”