ACTIVELY SENIOR
Dr. Robert Kravetz:
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A healer and historian By Mala Blomquist
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oused in the hallway right outside the library at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in downtown Phoenix is a unique collection. The Robert Kravetz, MD Medical Museum consists of 15 cases of medical antiques that are just a part of Dr. Robert Kravetz’s enormous collection that began when he purchased a small toothpaste jar for 25 cents decades ago. An avid historian, Kravetz’s collection grew tremendously while visiting his wife’s hometown of Newburyport, MA, in 1970. He knew that the town drugstore had been there for more than 100 years, so on a whim, he asked the clerk if they happened to have any antiques. The clerk handed him a key and gave him instructions to go around the corner and up the stairs to the loft. “I opened the door, and it was antique heaven,” recalls Kravetz. “The drugstore dated back to 1840, and they never threw anything away. Everything was there from the past 130 years.” Robert bought a few of the items and then decided to go back and buy the rest. “I bought the whole thing for $2,500, and it cost me $3,500 to pack and ship it with Mayflower (trucking).” The antiques filled a semi-trailer – there were 60 cases of medical history totaling three tons. He stored the cases in his brother’s garage for a few years and then opened an antique shop across from the Entz-White hardware store on E. Camelback Road. Then, over the years, he began to donate his items to various medical locations for display because he figured “it's useless if it’s in storage.” A retired gastroenterologist, Dr. Kravetz is on the faculty at the College of Medicine. (He’s the oldest member of the faculty at 87.) “I have a special elective with fourth-year medical students, where they do a 28 MAY/JUNE 2021 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE
research project and spend a month with me,” he says. “I give each medical student an antique related to the specialty or residency that they are going into. I tell them, ‘This is your first antique, it's a wonderful hobby, and it’s given me a lot of pleasure over the years, and I want you to continue your interest in medical history,’ which I think is important.” Dr. Kravetz believes that he practiced medicine in what he likes to call “The Golden Age of Medicine,” where a physician had autonomy – less time to deal with paperwork and
