Dr. Franzblau was born in Detroit, MI, with familial roots in Poland and Rumania. His residency training took place at the University of California, San Francisco, and St. John’s Hospital for Diseases of the Skin in London, England. He was in private practice in dermatology for 41 years in Marin County, CA, and is Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. He has served as Chair of the Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors of the AAD.
During the latter part of his career, he has developed an interest in medical ethics based on his study of the behavior of German and Japanese physicians during World War II, who behaved as killers, not healers, at the behest of their governments.
Q. Why did you choose dermatology?
A. I chose this field because of the outstanding department at the University of Michigan Medical School where dermatology was a separate department and was chaired by Dr. Arthur Curtis.
Dr. Curtis was double-boarded in internal medicine and dermatology, and approached dermatology from a scientific, rather than empirical, basis.
Q. What would be your advice to newly qualified physicians?
A. It is my view that all dermatology residents should broaden their personal outlooks and become conversant with music, literature, art, history and philosophy. To this end, I wish that the undergraduate education would de-emphasize science and math to permit greater flexibility in pre-medical education.
Q. Have you had a “15-minutes-of-fame” moment, and how did it come about?
A. My 15 minutes of fame occurred on Oct. 22, 1996, when I was featured on the television news show “60 Minutes” as a part-time Nazi hunter who has pursued Dr. Hans Joachim Sewering of Dachau, Bavaria, as a Nazi/SS physician. Sewering participated in the murder of between 300 and 900 Catholic children from 1942 to 1945 as an active participant in the T-4 program in Germany. I have pursued him for the past 13 years, attempting to get him tried for murder.
[According to the Saratoga News, a Saratoga, CA, newspaper, “Sewering, a former SS party member, is accused of transferring disabled German Catholic children to Nazi ‘Healing Centers,’ where they were subject to brutal medical tests and eventual euthanasia.
Sewering continues to practice in Germany and has been the country’s national medical association president three times. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge or involvement in the Nazi atrocities, despite the fact his signature appears on a number of the transfer orders. The German government also has denied Sewering’s involvement.
Franzblau’s one real victory came in 1993, when he successfully challenged Sewering’s nomination for president of the World Medical Association, a group created after the Nuremberg trials that advocates medical ethics. When Franzblau notified the association of Sewering’s past, it demanded the German doctor’s resignation.”]
Q. What do you think is the greatest political danger to the field of dermatology?
A. The greatest threats are not political but they are instead the following:
1. the rush to cosmetic dermatology
2. the failure to disclose conflicts of interest by academic, as well as practicing, dermatologists in speeches and
articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
I fear that dermatology will become trivialized by the aggressive pursuit of riches produced by cosmetic procedures and fear that the scientific basis of understanding dermatological diseases will suffer.
Dr. Franzblau was born in Detroit, MI, with familial roots in Poland and Rumania. His residency training took place at the University of California, San Francisco, and St. John’s Hospital for Diseases of the Skin in London, England. He was in private practice in dermatology for 41 years in Marin County, CA, and is Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. He has served as Chair of the Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors of the AAD.
During the latter part of his career, he has developed an interest in medical ethics based on his study of the behavior of German and Japanese physicians during World War II, who behaved as killers, not healers, at the behest of their governments.
Q. Why did you choose dermatology?
A. I chose this field because of the outstanding department at the University of Michigan Medical School where dermatology was a separate department and was chaired by Dr. Arthur Curtis.
Dr. Curtis was double-boarded in internal medicine and dermatology, and approached dermatology from a scientific, rather than empirical, basis.
Q. What would be your advice to newly qualified physicians?
A. It is my view that all dermatology residents should broaden their personal outlooks and become conversant with music, literature, art, history and philosophy. To this end, I wish that the undergraduate education would de-emphasize science and math to permit greater flexibility in pre-medical education.
Q. Have you had a “15-minutes-of-fame” moment, and how did it come about?
A. My 15 minutes of fame occurred on Oct. 22, 1996, when I was featured on the television news show “60 Minutes” as a part-time Nazi hunter who has pursued Dr. Hans Joachim Sewering of Dachau, Bavaria, as a Nazi/SS physician. Sewering participated in the murder of between 300 and 900 Catholic children from 1942 to 1945 as an active participant in the T-4 program in Germany. I have pursued him for the past 13 years, attempting to get him tried for murder.
[According to the Saratoga News, a Saratoga, CA, newspaper, “Sewering, a former SS party member, is accused of transferring disabled German Catholic children to Nazi ‘Healing Centers,’ where they were subject to brutal medical tests and eventual euthanasia.
Sewering continues to practice in Germany and has been the country’s national medical association president three times. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge or involvement in the Nazi atrocities, despite the fact his signature appears on a number of the transfer orders. The German government also has denied Sewering’s involvement.
Franzblau’s one real victory came in 1993, when he successfully challenged Sewering’s nomination for president of the World Medical Association, a group created after the Nuremberg trials that advocates medical ethics. When Franzblau notified the association of Sewering’s past, it demanded the German doctor’s resignation.”]
Q. What do you think is the greatest political danger to the field of dermatology?
A. The greatest threats are not political but they are instead the following:
1. the rush to cosmetic dermatology
2. the failure to disclose conflicts of interest by academic, as well as practicing, dermatologists in speeches and
articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
I fear that dermatology will become trivialized by the aggressive pursuit of riches produced by cosmetic procedures and fear that the scientific basis of understanding dermatological diseases will suffer.
Dr. Franzblau was born in Detroit, MI, with familial roots in Poland and Rumania. His residency training took place at the University of California, San Francisco, and St. John’s Hospital for Diseases of the Skin in London, England. He was in private practice in dermatology for 41 years in Marin County, CA, and is Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. He has served as Chair of the Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors of the AAD.
During the latter part of his career, he has developed an interest in medical ethics based on his study of the behavior of German and Japanese physicians during World War II, who behaved as killers, not healers, at the behest of their governments.
Q. Why did you choose dermatology?
A. I chose this field because of the outstanding department at the University of Michigan Medical School where dermatology was a separate department and was chaired by Dr. Arthur Curtis.
Dr. Curtis was double-boarded in internal medicine and dermatology, and approached dermatology from a scientific, rather than empirical, basis.
Q. What would be your advice to newly qualified physicians?
A. It is my view that all dermatology residents should broaden their personal outlooks and become conversant with music, literature, art, history and philosophy. To this end, I wish that the undergraduate education would de-emphasize science and math to permit greater flexibility in pre-medical education.
Q. Have you had a “15-minutes-of-fame” moment, and how did it come about?
A. My 15 minutes of fame occurred on Oct. 22, 1996, when I was featured on the television news show “60 Minutes” as a part-time Nazi hunter who has pursued Dr. Hans Joachim Sewering of Dachau, Bavaria, as a Nazi/SS physician. Sewering participated in the murder of between 300 and 900 Catholic children from 1942 to 1945 as an active participant in the T-4 program in Germany. I have pursued him for the past 13 years, attempting to get him tried for murder.
[According to the Saratoga News, a Saratoga, CA, newspaper, “Sewering, a former SS party member, is accused of transferring disabled German Catholic children to Nazi ‘Healing Centers,’ where they were subject to brutal medical tests and eventual euthanasia.
Sewering continues to practice in Germany and has been the country’s national medical association president three times. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge or involvement in the Nazi atrocities, despite the fact his signature appears on a number of the transfer orders. The German government also has denied Sewering’s involvement.
Franzblau’s one real victory came in 1993, when he successfully challenged Sewering’s nomination for president of the World Medical Association, a group created after the Nuremberg trials that advocates medical ethics. When Franzblau notified the association of Sewering’s past, it demanded the German doctor’s resignation.”]
Q. What do you think is the greatest political danger to the field of dermatology?
A. The greatest threats are not political but they are instead the following:
1. the rush to cosmetic dermatology
2. the failure to disclose conflicts of interest by academic, as well as practicing, dermatologists in speeches and
articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
I fear that dermatology will become trivialized by the aggressive pursuit of riches produced by cosmetic procedures and fear that the scientific basis of understanding dermatological diseases will suffer.
