A long and colorful era came to an end June 30^th, 2017 when Dr. Scott ('Bebe Free') Freeman retired after more than 32 years of continuous service to DRH and its patients.

Dr. Freeman was born and raised on Long Island, NY and lived in a Levitt House in Levittown.  (These birth places of suburbia built across the U.S. for returning WWII vets have a fascinating history-both good and bad.  You can read more about them in Wikipedia as did I.)  As the shine wore off of the planned community and a middle school teacher was stabbed by a student at the school Freeman attended, his mother put him in the Quaker School where she taught.  I included this factoid because it made me chuckle.  Those of you who knew the younger Scott Freeman who had medical students, residents and nurses scared to death can see the irony of him attending a school of gentle pacifists!  If you are too young to remember the pre-fatherhood Freeman when he was an overworked residency director, you have no appreciation as to how tough he could be.

While attending Tufts University, he moved from Engineering to Chemistry but always had a love for math and also started building and programming computers early onsomething he continues to do.  Always the overachiever, he had enough credits to graduate in 6 semesters while at the same time working as an Organic Chemistry TA for the pre-meds that he wryly observed couldn't get into medical school.  It was destined that Medicine would be the only career that could hold his interest.  While performing work on his NSF sponsored grant, a teacher passed out.  Scott was intrigued by the ambulance personnel and applied to medical school "on a whim" and was accepted!

Freeman finally found something challenging as the vast memorization was new to him.  The Chair of Anatomy and the Dean did not find Freeman's suggestion that 'he could just look it up if needed' very funny at all.  He was sent to the Dean again (probably quite a few times I think) when he expressed an interest in EM.  ABMS did not recognize Emergency Medicine yet and as most of you know, the East Coast Academia and Hospitals were very late to the party of acceptance of our specialty.  After graduation in 1978, he did a one year multiple specialty internship at Framington Union Hospital.  He would trade his easier rotations with the Psychiatry and Ophthalmology interns for their ED and ICU months.  I am not sure about the medical tort statute of limitations in Massachusetts, so I'll let Dr. Freeman tell you about some of the crazy cowboy adventures he saw in the ED back then.  If you seem him, ask about the central line story.  I laughed out loud!

During his internship, EM became a recognized specialty and he applied.  Scott states that Dr. Tintinalli later told him that she found his application 'behind something' after it was too late to join the DRH Program, but fortunately for Detroit, Henry Ford gave him a position in 1979.  (Again, ask Scott directly for some of his stories about the wild days of limited evidence based knowledge…and even less supervision.)

Dr. Freeman joined our DRH staff after residency in 1981.  He describes the DRH residents as pretty cocky and not overly fond of HFH people, but he does credit Pat Sweeny with being the only one in his class that was civil to Scott.  Freeman's famous inability to avoid conflicts was reflected in his first encounter with Dr. Ledgerwood.  When a surgery resident told him at 3am that a pancreatitis patient could not be admitted without an NG tube, he promptly woke her up to explain it wasn't necessary.  When she ran down to the ED to confront him, I can only imagine it was a vigorous exchange!

Scott had a brief 4 month experiment in 1983 working at Beaumont after Drs. Krome and Tintinalli went there, but for some reason his personality did not mesh with the rich and upper middle class sensibilities of Royal Oak.  After a several month vacation, Freeman returned to DRH after Dr. Brooks Bock returned to take over the Department.  He effectively ran the Residency and officially gained the title of residency director in 1985.  Scott muses that had he known Dr. Brian O'Neil would eventually be his boss, he wouldn't have treated his so badly.  Freeman was my residency director for the first 2 years of residency until he passed the baton to Dr. Wahl.  (Those of you who trained in the newer, kinder and gentler era of medical education will never understand the 'pucker power' that Freeman could evoke.  I was almost as afraid of him as I was ofthe nuns of my school days!  Hearing, "Are you trying to kill that patient" was usually followed by the instinct to put your head between your legs and kiss…You know the rest.) 

During this time Scott married one of the DRH ED nurses and started having their 4 children.  The amount of time involved as a program director led him to resign.  The transformation of Dr. Freeman to the softer and amusing Scott we know today started almost immediately after stepping away from the residency.  He still couldn't keep his mouth shut however.  After complaining about the scheduling a number of times, he was 'voluntold' to do it himself, which he did until the automated Shift Admin went on line a few years ago.  I must admit that Scott does have insight into his inability to hold his tongue.  When I was nearing graduation, I told him that I wanted to emulate him as an attending.  He told me that was a bad idea in no uncertain terms.  "It is not worth being in the boss's office every week" he advised.  Among his other accomplishments, Scott was an oral examiner for ABEM for many years and he also developed our practice wiki.

Retiring at age 65 in 2017, he is still very busy.  An avid cyclist, he biked over 3,000 miles last year.  For 'fun' he has completed classes in Differential Calculus and Machine Learning and tutors Calculus students.  (Huh??)

Detroit, its people and the hundreds of students and residents that Dr. Freeman has touched are much richer for the experience.  Let's wish his a long and prosperous retirement.

Philip A. Lewalski, MD

Editor-in-Chief