By Doug Brunk, San Diego Bureau
As young kids, Bonnie Barksy and her older brother, Gary, spent countless hours at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, where their father Sidney chaired the department of dermatology for 21 years.
"If we were going to go to the city to see a movie he'd stop in at Cook County Hospital and we'd be there awhile while he took care of things," recalled Dr. Bonnie Barksy, who is now a dermatologist in Highland Park, Ill.
"We were always welcome in his office," she remembers. "Not only is he a doctor, but also he's a teacher. He loves to teach, so he would always want to show us what he was doing. We were familiar with the milieu."
Dr. Gary Barksy, a dermatologist who practices in Elmhurst, Ill., remembers watching firsthand what the life of a dermatologist was like, how his father "ran an office, got along with people, and how to look at lesions, picking up dermatology principles as a teenager."
Those experiences were refreshing, Bonnie added, because many children never get the chance to encounter their parents' work environment. Working parents "disappear during the day and come back," she explained. "We would follow Dad on his pathway at times."
For Bonnie, interest in becoming a dermatologist "was always there subconsciously," because she and Gary were around the field so much. But she insists that her father and her late mother, who also was a physician, never pressured her to consider it as a career.
"Being a doctor was so much a part of the identity of my parents, I think I incorporated that into my own identity," Bonnie said. "When I went to medical school, I came up with the idea that I would be open and see if there were other fields that might interest me, but I always came back to dermatology."
Sidney, who still works at Cook County Hospital 3 days a week, recalls giving his children this advice: "Whatever you want to be, be it. But be good at it."
Not only did Bonnie and Gary Barsky ultimately choose careers in dermatology, they also studied at the same institutions as their father. All three earned their undergraduate degrees at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and their medical degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The trio talks on the phone almost every day, and rarely does a conversation go by without discussing a matter related to dermatology. Gary described the relationship he shares with his father and sister as "unique and a privilege, because you can go by someone else's experience to help you," he said. "It's humbling because we understand each other, how we live, and what we do. Also, we can consult on various medical conditions and get one another's feedback. It takes years to master a field. It's an ongoing process."
Bonnie considers the chats with her brother and father an advantage, "because sometimes people who go into private practice become more isolated from their colleagues. Some of my dad's students will call him periodically when they're in practice to ask him things. I'm lucky because I have that advantage on an everyday basis, because I do talk to my dad every day."
Gary, who performs more laser and cosmetic procedures than his sister and father do, said that certain challenges come with following in his father's footsteps. "He has a very strong reputation and is well respected in the dermatology community," Gary said of his father. "He also has a strong knowledge of dermatology, so I work hard to try to approach that [level of] knowledge. That's the challenge."
Sidney, meanwhile, is grateful for the family ties to dermatology. "It's always nice when parents have more in common with their children than [they do] in general," he said. "Not only are we related but we also have a common enterprise, common interests. Many people have asked me, 'How did you do it? How did you get your children to have an interest in medicine?' I say, 'I don't know. I just have two great kids.'"
Blazing His Own Trail in Dermatology
Before Dr. Randall K. Roenigk began medical school, he was intent on avoiding dermatology altogether.
He'd been around it plenty as the son of Dr. Henry H. Roenigk Jr., the former chair of the department of dermatology at the Cleveland Clinic and Northwestern University, Chicago, who now practices in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"I wanted to maintain my independence. I wanted to do something different," recalled Dr. Roenigk, who chairs the department of dermatology at the Mayo Medical School, Rochester, Minn. "It was that rebellious thing that some kids go through. Maybe I was going through it at a later age."