Charles Eliot “Chick” Silberstein, an orthopedic surgeon who had been the Baltimore Orioles’ crew physician from 1978 to 2009, died of sepsis June 25 on the Gilchrist Middle Towson.
He celebrated his ninetieth birthday on June 13.
“Chick was a really particular human being and he helped me get to the mound,” said Jim Palmer, the Corridor of Fame pitcher who carried out for nearly 20 years for the Orioles. “He did each of my knees … he was a neighbor, a pal and a mentor.”
Born in Baltimore and raised on Denison Street, he was the son of Louis Silberstein, an assistant Baltimore Metropolis solicitor inside the administration of Mayor Thomas J. D’Alesandro Jr., and Bessie Rabinowitz.
Relations said he instructed tales of his summer season camp days at Camp Saginaw in Pennsylvania and was nonetheless singing camp songs all by his 80s.
He attended Liberty Faculty and the outdated Robert E. Lee Faculty and was a 1950 graduate of Baltimore Metropolis Faculty.
Whereas in elementary faculty he befriended Stephen Sachs, who would go on to alter into Maryland’s authorized skilled primary. They turned lifelong buddies and Dr. Silberstein said he bounce started Mr. Sachs’ political career when he helped him win pupil authorities president.
He earned a stage at what was then Western Maryland Faculty and was its tennis crew captain. He entered the College of Maryland Faculty of Drugs and achieved his orthopedic teaching at what’s now Sidney Kimmel Medical Faculty in Philadelphia.
“I got here to know Chick when he operated on my knee at Youngsters’s Hospital once I was in highschool. He was a gentleman’s gentleman,” said Decide Stuart R. Berger, a family good pal who sits on the appellate courtroom docket in Maryland. “Chick made individuals really feel snug and comfy. He had integrity, integrity past reproach.”
Dr. Silberstein started practising in Baltimore in 1964 and was on the staffs of MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital, MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, Higher Baltimore Medical Middle, Sinai Hospital, Youngsters’s Hospital and Johns Hopkins hospitals.
From 1971 to 2001, he was a affiliate inside the 4 East Madison Group, a observe of orthopedic surgeons.
His son, Richard Silberstein, said, “My father’s victims felt as if he had been their grandfather. He so cared about them and spent the time to take heed to their tales, the place they grew up, particulars like that. He appreciated understanding these points.
My father had a favorite sweater. It bought right here from the daddy of a affected individual from Mongolia. The sweater was native cashmere.”
From 2001 to 2009, Dr. Silberstein observed victims at Johns Hopkins Greenspring Station.
He spent just a few years inside the Orthopedic Division at Kennedy Krieger Institute. He dealt with fairly just a few cerebral palsy victims who traveled worldwide to see him.
In 2014, the Kennedy Krieger Institute opened and devoted the Dr. Charles “Chick” Silberstein Sports activities Park on the Bennett Institute on the Kennedy Krieger Faculty campus: Greenspring Campus Excessive Faculty, as quickly as the position of Youngsters’s Hospital.
The Sports activities Park permits wheelchair athletes with developmental disabilities to work together in sports activities actions.
In 2016 the Division of Orthopedic Surgical procedure at Johns Hopkins College Faculty of Drugs established the Dr. Charles Silberstein Analysis Fellowship.
Because the Orioles’ crew physician, he was a member of the Affiliation of Main League Baseball Staff Physicians from 1984 to 2009 and was its 1992 president.
Dr. Silberstein turned an in depth good pal of Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer.
Mr. Palmer said of his physician, “Chick, like a coach with a bedside method, was nearly like a shrink to me. Once I was 38 years outdated, he got here to me and stated, ‘Jim, you’ll be able to’t do that anymore.’ He allowed me to have peace, that medically I needed to cease. He was good and he was sincere. He was a type of individuals who made Baltimore particular.”
He traveled with the Orioles to Chicago for the playoffs and at last to Philadelphia for the World Sequence in 1983.
Dr. Silberstein served on the McDonogh Faculty board of trustees from 1988 to 1996; the Kennedy Krieger Institute board of trustees from 2005 to 2009 and was president of the medical staff of Kennedy Krieger Institute from 1987 to 1988.
“He was someone I so loved working with. He was an ideal man. He was even-keeled, type and complimented individuals,” said Lainy LeBow Sachs, a retired Kennedy Krieger senior govt vice chairman.
Dr. Silberstein was a earlier president of the Maryland Orthopedic Society and chaired the persevering with education committee of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports activities Drugs.
He was a longtime member of the Homeland Racquet Membership, Beth El Congregation and Seaside Jewish Neighborhood in Rehoboth Seaside, Delaware.
Dr. Silberstein and his partner spent summers at their dwelling in The Pines a part of Rehoboth Seaside.
“It was the place the household gathered and had many completely happy recollections of Shabbat and vacation meals on the porch listening to Chick’s great tales, and generally his singing a Frank Sinatra or camp track,” said his daughter, Susan Silberstein.
Survivors embrace his partner of 67 years, Barbara Harrison Silberstein; a daughter, Susan Silberstein of Baltimore; a son, Richard Silberstein of Baltimore; 4 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Funeral suppliers are private.
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