Remembering Dr. Stephen Levin

I first met Steve Levin at the New York City office of Kinderland, a progressive summer camp focused on social justice. I grew up going to Kinderland, and was there for my interview to be a Counselor in Training (CIT). Steve was there, waiting for his own daughter — who had never been to Kinderland — to finish her own CIT interview.  In a way, Steve’s bringing his daughter Kate to that interview and that camp is a metaphor for what he did for so many people in his life; introducing them to interesting and important ideas, places and values.

Steve brought his daughter to what turned out to be a healthy and happy place for her, just as he brought so many people, friends and patients to happier and healthier states.  We started talking, and I liked him immediately; he was warm, engaged and engaging. He had a soothing, animated, deep voice and bright, sad brown eyes. He was excited and nervous about his daughter’s first time in camp and when she came out of the interview, his face lit up — Kate has this effect on him — and he enthusiastically introduced us, eager for his newbie daughter to meet an experienced Kinderlander. When they left I hoped and suspected that I’d see them again. And I did; Kate and I became CITs that summer and, more importantly, good friends. I was 15 when I met Steve. And that was 15 years ago. Half a life ago. I’ve known Steve for half of my life.

Steve Levin was the Medical Director of the Mount Sinai Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a Professor of Occupational Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and the Co-Director of the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program. What is Occupational medicine, you may be asking. In a speech he delivered accepting an award for occupational medicine, Steve described it as

“work that combines clinical medicine, research, and advocacy for people who need the assistance of health professionals to obtain some measure of justice and health care for illnesses they suffer as a result of companies pursuing the biggest profits they can make, no matter what the effect on workers or the communities they operate in.”

But this was not the trajectory Steve always had in mind. Born and raised in Philadelphia to working class parents — his father a carpenter, his mother a hospital worker — and a graduate of Wesleyan University and the New York University School of Medicine, Steve planned to become a rich doctor, a heart surgeon to the stars.

When he received the Collegium Ramazzini’s Irving J. Selikoff Memorial Award, Steve attributed his transformation to his friendship with a member of the Young Lords (YLO), a Puerto Rican civil rights group, who exposed Steve to “the conditions some people in East Harlem had to live in. Frozen cascades of water from leaking pipes running down the stairs; old folks huddled under blankets for warmth in freezing apartments. I had never seen anything like this.” Steve started working with the Young Lords,

“and it changed what I wanted to do with my life. The more I learned about the causes of the social and economic inequalities in this country and the rest of the world, the more I felt I had to try to be part of changing the conditions people face, in my town, in my country, so that the majority of the people in the world, who work hard just to maintain a life of basics, or are poor and at the margins, could live in security and peace and do all the good things people are capable of together when they’re not made miserable.”

Steve began to believe that “if people were active in large numbers, through a host of different expressions of their opinions and ideas, things could change. I felt that somehow I wanted to combine the real satisfaction of taking care of patients and being involved in helping people get organized in their own interests.”

The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health reflected,

“We were honored to have known Steve; to have been able to call him a friend. We will miss his impact in the fight for safer workplaces, but will also miss his counsel, his wonderful sense of humor, his ability to work with people from different backgrounds — hospital administrators, union officials, rank and file workers and community residents — to build. His passing is a painful loss. He will be greatly missed.”

Steve would have no time for these words, however. When the New York Times asked Steve’s wife Robin Dintiman how he had responded to the passage of the Zadroga bill, she said, “he was too much of a nose-to-the-grindstone guy to be relishing that accomplishment. He just moved on to the next battle for working guys.”

Even Facing his own cancer and death, Steve was relentless in his fight for medical justice. Robin explained to me how only a few months ago, “he had nine union guys over to the house to talk about a tissue bank project and the next day he was in the hospital with a 104 temperature. He was just trying to square things off,” ensuring that the project would continue on without him. Given that “less than six medical schools offer residencies in occupational medicine,” said Robin, and that “this health care system is more and more about making money… his concern was about how to get young people to understand and have compassion for and devote their lives to the lives or workers, to public health and occupational medicine.” Steve was already thinking about how his death could bring attention and resources to occupational medicine: “We discussed it before he passed and he wants to get the mileage out of his death to solidify this as an important part of medicine.” The family and Mount Sinai hope to establish a scholarship in Steve’s name to generate interest in occupational medicine.

Steve’s daughter Kate said, “My dad will live on not only through the work he did, but through the daily example he set for how to live. It was in his nature to love and respect other people, and he tried to do right by others in every interaction, from everyday conversations to larger struggles for justice.”

Though those of us who knew Steve feel honored and lucky,  he considered himself lucky to have had the opportunity to do the work he did. Wrapping up his speech accepting the Irving J. Selikoff Memorial Award, Steve said,  “Let me finish by expressing my gratitude….for this award, but maybe even more for the opportunity to do work that has been and continues to be so satisfying, and for the opportunity to work with so many good, socially conscious friends and colleagues……   and  get paid for it. Nothing, it seems to me, could be luckier than that.” Perhaps the only thing luckier than that was loving and being loved by his amazing family: his wife Robin, his sons Jonathan, Joey and David and his daughter Kate.

Once, when Steve was over, my uncle made a political point Steve heartily agreed with. He pointed his finger at both my uncle and the accuracy of the remark and said “yeah.” We coined that the SLFP (the Steve Levinian Finger Point). It was an act of testimony, affirmation, and support. It was a connection, an atheist’s “amen.” His daughter and I would SLFP at each other frequently. After Steve died, I was thrilled to come across a video featuring the SLFP. So, Steve, here’s a SLFP right back at you.