Dr. Albert C. (Octy) Furstenberg
1890 - 1969
Dr. Albert C. Furstenberg was another of the truly great sons of Saginaw. He had an innate gift in the field of medicine.
Born in South Saginaw in 1890, son of a lumber dealer, the love and dedication he had for the medical profession was inspired when he was an eight-year-old boy at the reins of the horse-drawn buggy of a Dr. Tom M. Williamson, accompanying him on house calls. Dr. Williamson, a family friend, used to chuckle at the boy’s many questions. He always was amazed at their intelligence. The doctor kept encouraging his young friend toward a medical career.
Friends and close acquaintances called him “Octy” Furstenberg. At Saginaw High School, where he was among the most popular in his class, he played guard on SHS’s state championship football team of 1907. His rugged quickness won him the honor of All-State guard the same year. He also lettered in basketball. He received a bachelor of science degree in 1913 and a medical degree in 1915, both at the University of Michigan. There he left a lasting mark as one of the school’s greatest scientists, educators, and administrators.
He became chairman of the University Hospital department of otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine) and was named dean of the University of Michigan Medical School in 1935. As a researcher, Dr. Furstenberg made major contributions in the improvement of his specialty in medical science. They won him an international reputation. He showed his versatility as an administrator during World War II, when he boosted the program within the University of Michigan Medical School to provide an extra graduating class of physicians when they were at a premium.
During this time, he was chairman of the National Research Council’s subcommittee on otolaryngology. He initiated efforts to associate Henry Ford Hospital with University of Michigan as a graduate training center many years before the plan became a reality. His friendship with philanthropists, Sebastian Kresge and Charles Stewart Mott, was instrumental in establishing the Kresge Research Building, Kresge Hearing Research Institute and the Institute of Industrial Health.
Early in his career, Dr. Furstenberg made his calls on horseback. One night he had to perform a tracheotomy on a boy with diphtheria in Ypsilanti. The lad’s father, holding the kerosene lantern, fainted as soon as the doctor opened the windpipe. Dr. Furstenberg got the light burning again, finished the operation and began medical treatment which would soon cure the boy—but came down with diphtheria himself. Later, he was one of the doctors treating Elizabeth Nancy Maloy of Jackson who had diphtheria. He helped cure her and in 1922 they were married. They had two daughters and a son.
In World War I, he was a first lieutenant. In World War II, he was National Research Council subcommittee chairman and honorary member of the Army Medical Library. In 1948, he was appointed civilian consultant to the United States Army Surgeon General.
He was president of a number of societies in his particular professional field. He received the de Roaldes Award of the American Laryngological Association for achievement and accomplishment in his field and the association’s James E. Newcomb award for outstanding contribution to otolaryngology as clinician, teacher, lecturer and administrator.
Dr. Furstenberg had the gift of making his patients feel he was interested only in them. One such patient was a man named Robert Hecker, whose life Dr. Furstenberg saved through delicate surgery. As a result, Hecker established a scholarship in the doctor’s name for University of Michigan and Wayne State students specializing in ear, nose and throat medicine.
As a researcher, Dr. Furstenberg made major contributions in the understanding of the facial planes of the neck and of the neurology of the ear, nose and larynx, in addition to investigations of Meniere’s disease, osteomyelitis of the skull and conductive deafness.
In his 25 years as dean of the University of Michigan Medical School, Dr. Furstenberg guided a renaissance of the University Medical Center. It became one of the foremost facilities for medical research in the United States while the medical school became one of the nation’s largest. In 1959, at the age of 69, he retired as dean and became dean emeritus.
After retirement, he continued to take care of private patients and to inspire a new generation of medical students. Dr. Furstenberg died in 1969 in Ann Arbor at the age of 79.
“It is best,” he had once said, “really quite important, that the physician maintain his relationship with the patient.”
“Patients are going to be with us for all time to come, I think, and we have got to continue to do our very best to practice medicine in a reputable manner, and with all the ability that we can possibly muster.”
In 1941 he was named Saginaw High School’s Distinguished Alumnus. The honor elated him. He commented at the time: “I can truthfully say that I have received two coveted honors during my life. First, that of Distinguished Alumnus of Saginaw High School and second, the de Roaldes Award. “I cherish the first because of the recognition given me by my high school in my old home town. I covet the second because of the honor paid me for achievement and accomplishments in my particular specialty of medicine.”
Dr. Furstenberg was a tall, immaculately groomed man with a frequent twinkle in his eye. His favorite sports were hunting, fishing and riding horses.
Another of Dr. Furstenberg’s memorable visits to Saginaw was in 1953. He was then master of ceremonies at a homecoming dinner honoring George M. Humphrey, former Secretary of the Treasury, one of his high school friends.
“Medicine is a better way of life than any other if a person is willing to devote his life to it,” he used to tell his students. Dr. “Octy” Furstenberg practiced what he preached.