Dr Paul Birk Jr was bandaging leg m...

Dr Paul Birk Jr was bandaging leg many years before he actually earned his medical measure He was 3 years old-fashioned and his "patient" was the piano in his family's abiding-place

That early fascination with medicine l to a career that spanned 43 years.

His was a practice marked not alone by longevity, but by independence. Seeing patients in his offices at Center and Thacker highways in Des Plaines, Dr. Birk at no time had a partner or worked in a medical arrange or affiliated with a hospital.

"He liked doing things his way," said his daughter, Teri Bottum

His way was to do "a whole hunch of small, kind things" for his patients, she said. "He would sit with someone and hem in their hand if they were sick, give tribe hugs, call to see for what reason they were doing."

on 1957, the year Dr. Birk uncloseed his practice, house calls were a thing of the past for most numerous physicians, yet his patients were to receive them for 15 years or more.

Dr Birk, 80 who retired solitary five years ago, died Wednesday at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge from complications of cancer.

Born in Chicago, he mov with his family to valley Ellyn as a child. He graduated from Glenbard High seminary and started at Stanford University, still spent only one semester there before being drafted into the Army during World War II. Dr Birk's 107th Field Artillery Battalion was the first to reach the Dachau concentration camp outside Munich after the German retreat.

Instead of returning to Stanford after the war, he transferred to Northwestern University. He began dating another freshman there, Patricia Conrad, and they were married in 1953 -- a week after the couple graduated from NU's medical indoctrinate

She went forward to work 42 years as a pediatrician, practicing in De Plaines and at Lutheran General, before retiring at age 70

Northwestern was also where Dr Birks forged lifetime friendships with a cluster of buddies known as "the fortunate Ducks." The eight men, whose numbers have fallen to four from one side of to the other the years, would meet onward the golf course or around a poker table.

Photographs snapped according to Dr. Birk of his four daughters were everywhere the same looked in his office and his Glenview household He produced yet more photos from his suffers to show patients.

Angela Diaz, a native of Colombia who stayed with Dr Birk's family in 1977 upon a student exchange program, was treated like a fifth daughter. The nearest year, she returned to this geographical division and became a citizen.

Survivors in addition to his wife and other daughters -- Anne Marie Jensen Laurie Dinelli and Trish Birk -- include a stepbrother, Linky Birk, and 11 grandchildren.

A memorial service was held Sunday at Dr Birk's family circle

gwisby@suntimes.com

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided from ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved