With the last name that he has, it may seem like Dr. Harvey Guttmann was destined to become a gastroenterologist. The Beth Sholom Synagogue board member said he chose the specialty for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest one was that it allowed him to develop long-term relationships with patients.
“What it allowed me to do was to develop relationships with patients longitudinally over the course of time. The beauty of gastroenterology is that we see all types of patients — young and old — with all types of problems: problems with their esophagus, with their stomach, with their colon, with the pancreas, with their liver and bile duct,” he said. “So, it afforded me a variety of different types of diseases [to work on], and it allowed me to really establish what I wanted to do, which is to develop long-term relationships with patients.”
Guttmann found success in this endeavor. On June 25, Jefferson Abington Hospital held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly-named Dr. Harvey Guttmann GI Procedure Suite. He retired from Jefferson in December of last year after more than 40 years of service to the hospital, serving as chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, president of Jefferson Abington Hospital Medical Staff, a board trustee and more.
Guttmann was honored with the naming of this new procedure suite thanks to his commitment to the community, which spans generations. As a gastroenterologist, he got to know different families from the 1980s all the way up until this past year.
“Following them over the years, developing relationships not only with them, but with their children, and ultimately, with their grandchildren,” he said.
As the child of Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia, Guttmann understands the value of good health and security. His parents emigrated to Israel after the end of the war, with Guttmann being born in the world’s only Jewish state not long before the family moved to New York in 1959. He was raised attending Conservative synagogues in the area, and sought a familiar environment when he first came to Philadelphia, which was how he found Beth Sholom.
“I’ve really enjoyed my affiliation with the synagogue. We’re one of the few Conservative synagogues in the area that actually has an increase in membership and a very good preschool and young student program that draws younger folks who live in the area,” he said. “So, I’m very proud of that, of the synagogue, and have always treasured my affiliation with it.”
At Beth Sholom, Guttmann has served on the executive board and the board of trustees. Whether it’s medicine or Jewish life, Guttmann has found his way into leadership roles. True to his values, the doctor is always thinking of others. He said that having a suite named for him is great, but what is more important is that it will provide for the community.
“This suite is larger with state-of-the-art equipment that allows patients to receive care close to where they live [in the suburbs],” he said. “In the olden days, there were [only] a lot of very sophisticated treatments available in Center City, and it would be a very difficult situation if [a patient] needed to have their family visit them in the hospital. Now they can be done close to home because we have the space, the technology, the expertise. If they need to be there overnight, their family can be there to support them.”
Since Guttmann started as a gastroenterologist in the mid-’80s, the technology used has progressed greatly. Under his leadership, the hospital was able to add technology that was used to treat GI issues.
“I started to really ask all of those individuals that were important in the decision-making process to expand the unit. To do so, it took a lot of time, because medicine these days requires lots of money to do all of these types of expansions. Finally, with the ability to gather revenue from dedicated philanthropists, and through the help of Jill Kyle, who is the head of philanthropy at Abington Hospital, we have a sufficient amount of funds to be able to create this unit,” Guttmann said.
These leadership positions were important to Guttmann, but they were not the reason he went into medicine.
“[Those roles] were just a byproduct. I didn’t really think about those matters when I went into the field. I really thought about what kind of patient I’d like to take care of, and I think that decision was very fortunate for me, that it was the right one,” he said.