HEALTH
A Physician Advocate for Those with Disabilities Michigan Medicine is establishing a Disability Health Endowment in honor of Dr. Philip Zazove, chair of Family Medicine at U-M.
ELIZABETH A. KATZ SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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Dr. Philip Zazove
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FEBRUARY 24 • 2022
hilip Zazove, M.D., as a family physician who has lived his life with profound hearing loss, is well acquainted with overcoming adversity. He’s had to prove himself repeatedly as someone who is just as competent and capable as someone without a disability. This was true from an early age, as he attended public school as a child growing up in Lincolnwood, Ill. (near Evanston and Skokie), where he was one of the first deaf children mainstreamed in the northern Chicago suburbs. He then attended college at Northwestern University. Zazove, who is Jewish, decided to attend medical school. Due to his deafness, he faced countless rejections by medical schools before finally gaining admittance at Rutgers Medical School. Despite those ongoing challenges, he was able to establish his own medical practice in Utah in 1981, and then joined the University of Michigan as an assistant professor in 1989. Zazove has served as the second George A. Dean, M.D. Chair of Family Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan (U-M) since 2011. The chair was established in 2006, thanks to a generous donation by family medicine pioneer George A. Dean, M.D., and his wife Vivian, who have been long-time leaders and philanthropists in the Metro Detroit Jewish community. Zazove is now ready to retire after a lifetime of impressive achievements.
