Martin
Rush, M.D., Middletown's first psychiatrist,
began practicing psychiatry in the 1960s after five years as a family
physician. He closed up his practice in September 2010 after being
diagnosed with lung cancer and died October 25, 2010. His assessment
of his life: "I have had a glo-rious life! I've got nothing to
complain about!"
Dr. Rush
earned an A.B. magna cum laude at Miami (Ohio) University in 1948
then entered the University of Cincinnati Medical College in 1948
and graduated with an M.D. in 1953. He left his class for two years
to attend Oxford University in England 1949-1951 where he earned a
B.A. and an M.A. on a Rhodes
Scholarship.
He practiced Family Medicine for five years, but then returned to
medical college to study psychiatry for three years because he had
observed that people's physical illnesses were usually preceded by
emotional stress. He wanted to treat the underlying causes instead
of symptoms. In 1963 he established an outpatient daytime treatment
center which functioned for over 30 years, most recently as The Stress
Center.
In recent years, he saw a few, selected patients each week for Insight
Psychotherapy. He did not treat emotional problems with medicines
alone. Sessions lasting 50 minutes were scheduled, usually weekly,
with the aim of curing conditions, not just quieting them with medications
indefinitely.
Dr. Rush preferred to see patients with subtle, obscure or unrecognized
stresses and welcomed patients with conditions that did not respond
to medication alone.
His book, Decoding
the Secret Language of Your Body (published by Simon &
Schuster 1994, 200 pages) was translated into Spanish and Taiwanese.
Music
Bravely Ringing, published by iUniverse in 2008, is a memoir
of a bomber pilot in WWII.
