Caring more than skin deep Caring more than skin deep (May 28, 2004)

Treating veterans has been special for retiring dermatologist
by Dolores Fox Ciardelli

As a boy growing up in Atherton, Jerry Severin, now 70, listened to the exploits of World War II soldiers with awe. So his patients at the Veterans Hospital in Livermore have had special meaning to him.

"I've heard marvelous stories about World War II," said Severin, a dermatologist, who is retiring at the end of May. "One was a survivor of Pearl Harbor. He didn't like to talk about that. But he was also there at the end of the war. He watched Japanese in tall hats and dark suits climb aboard the ship to sign the surrender."

"Another one was at a POW camp in Germany and north Poland," he continued. "He was released in February 1945 when Hitler realized he was losing the war, and he hiked across the snow. He was liberated by Patton's army."

Severin is retiring at the end of May after 45 years as a doctor and 40 as a dermatologist. He had a private practice for 32 years in Livermore and has spent the last six as head of dermatology services at the VA Hospital.

He met his wife Charlotte, a well-known artist in the Tri-Valley, while he was at Stanford Medical School, which was located in San Francisco at the time. She was a Stanford nursing student, and her residence held a coffee for some of the medical students.

"I was waiting for the elevator, and he was across the room," Charlotte recalled. She said she was standing by a ping-pong table when their eyes met and he walked over. "He said, 'I'm Jerry Severin. Do you want to play ping-pong?'"

They were married while still in school, Charlotte recalled, and their one-year anniversary was on her graduation day in 1959. Jerry filled in for a doctor in Lodi that summer and they saved every penny to finance an eight-month trip around the world, visiting Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Mother Teresa's mission in Calcutta, Turkey and traveling all over Europe.

When they arrived back in the United States, Severin said, he got his doctor's draft notice: "Welcome to the 7th Army." They traveled back to Germany where he was stationed for two years, and their son Jack was born.

"It was right before the Berlin Wall went up, in 1961," he recalled. It was during the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. "I immunized an entire battalion against yellow fever when we went on alert," he remembered.

In 1963, the Severin family returned to the Bay Area for Jerry to do his three-year residency in dermatology, a love he had discovered during the seven weeks they focused on it in medical school. When that was completed, a physician in Modesto told him that the growing community of Livermore had general practitioners and pediatricians but no dermatologist.

"I saw this was the place to practice," said Severin. The young family - now with baby daughter Kim - moved to Livermore, rented a home and began to look for a place to buy. They checked out Castlewood but wondered about playmates for the children.

"Then we found a place in Pleasanton that fit," recalled Severin, a neighborhood with lots of young families and where the children could walk to school. Julie was born in 1973, and all three young Severins went to Amador Valley High.

For three years Severin practiced dermatology on L Street, then a group opened the Muirwood Medical Dental Building where he practiced for 29 years. During most of that time he made several visits a month to the VA Hospital, which is part of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. "It was principally inpatient then," he said. "Now it's primarily outpatient."

"Most VA hospitals work in the shadows of medical schools," he explained. "In 1998 I got a call from the chief at Stanford to take over dermatology here in Livermore. I asked about three days a week but no, they wanted five days."

So he gave up his private practice and began to work at the VA Hospital full time, where he does mostly geriatric dermatology.

"Since I served in the Cold War, I feel I was fortunate," said Severin. "I feel the call to help real veterans."

The move worked out well for Pleasanton resident Ralph Williams. He is a Kaiser patient but as a Korean War veteran he qualifies for care at the VA Hospital. When Severin moved there, so did he, he said, noting that as a redhead he helps to support several dermatologists.

"I'm gonna miss Jerry and his sense of humor, and his caring," said Williams. "He's a good friend and a wonderful doctor. Half of medicine is cheering people and making people feel good."

He also mentioned that they have flown kites together. Severin also has been in banjo bands. And he was a pilot.

"For 18 years I flew a light airplane but I quit in 1993," he said. "I decided to quit while I was ahead. I was not flying enough and the last time, I thought it was a little dangerous, I was rusty."

In addition to medical groups, Severin has been active in the community. He headed the YMCA project to rebuild the former St. Augustine rectory in Pleasanton, and was active in Indian Guides and Princesses with his children. He ushered at Pleasanton Presbyterian Church for 10 years, and is a lifetime honorary member of the Livermore Rotary Club.

Severin said he is sad at plans to close the VA hospital, especially after seeing it refurbished to meet earthquake standards. "It's a beautiful place to work," he said. He added that his commute has been ideal - east on Vineyard Avenue and over to Arroyo Road the back way.

He said patients have been stopping in to tell him goodbye. "I will miss my patients," he said. And their stories.

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