In a career full of firsts — first Jewish medical student offered residency at Presbyterian Hospital, founder of the area’s first cardiac catheterization lab, one of the region’s first cardiologists, and others — Seymoure Krause was most proud of one part of his extraordinary career in health care.
“He was an old-fashioned doctor who gave all of himself to every one of his patients,” said his daughter, Barbara Krause.
In a career that spanned 70 years in the Pittsburgh area, Dr. Krause saw thousands of patients, both as a cardiologist and internist, frequently seeing the grandchildren of some of his earliest patients in practices in Braddock, Forest Hills and Pittsburgh — including some patients who moved out of state but would come back to have him do their annual checkup.
“Years ago, I told a friend of his, ‘He’s like [the gentle television show doctor] Marcus Welby M.D.’ And he said, ‘No, Dr. Welby was like your dad. They modeled him after your dad,’ ” Ms. Krause said.
Dr. Krause, 97, who only stopped practicing medicine three years ago, died Tuesday morning at his home in Oakland.
No specific cause of death was noted, his daughter said, because “he just died of old age.”
He reached that old age at least in part by long ago taking the advice he gave to all of his patients: That the heart was a muscle and should be cared for as such with a good diet, regular exercise and — shockingly then — avoiding smoking.
“He would even go to the YMCA and exercise with his patients back then, because he believed in it,” said his son, Norman, an orthopedic surgeon.
Those recommendations were not fully understood by all doctors in the 1950s and 1960s when Dr. Krause was talking about such steps to a healthy life, not just to patients, but as an expert in health stories in the news.
His patients took his advice, not only because they respected him, but because he respected his patients, said Rita Coultas, a nurse who worked alongside Dr. Krause for 38 years until she retired in 1990.
“As he would say, ‘The heart is only part of the body, and you have to treat the whole person,’” Ms. Coultas said.
He took time to listen to everything his patients had to say, said Larry Adler, a cardiologist who was Dr. Krause’s partner for 50 years beginning in 1963.
“His patients loved him,” said Dr. Adler, who still practices, “because he was about caring for the patient; not just the illness, but their family life, their work life.”
Dr. Krause was born in Pittsburgh to Sam and Gizella Krause, who had both emigrated from Hungary in the 1890s as children.
The youngest of five children, he grew up in Braddock, where his father founded and ran the longtime clothier S.M. Krause on Braddock Avenue.
After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh medical school, he turned down that famed residency at Presbyterian Hospital in favor of one from Montefiore Hospital. He interrupted his residency to serve as a physician in the Air Force during World War II, before completing his medical training and opening a practice with his older brother, Gilbert, starting in Braddock, not far from their father’s clothing store.
Over the next 70 years, Dr. Krause would serve as the head of cardiology at Braddock General Hospital and Homestead Hospital, open with Dr. Adler the first cardiac rehabilitation facility in the area, hold leadership positions at Montefiore, and serve on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
He and his wife of 67 years, Corinne Azen Krause, have long been philanthropists, contributing to many causes, including, most recently, Jewish Residential Services, which will soon erect a tower in Squirrel Hill named in the family’s honor, his daughter said.
His Jewish faith and his family were the rocks of his life, his granddaughter Molly Krause said, and the family relied heavily on him.
“He was really wise, like, a total mensch,” she said, using the Yiddish word for a person of integrity. “He had so much wisdom.”
In addition to his wife and Norman, Barbara and Molly Krause, Dr. Krause is survived by daughters Kathy and Diane, and two other grandchildren, Mason and Spencer.
Visitation will be at 10 a.m. today at Ralph Schugar Funeral Chapel, 5509 Centre Ave., Pittsburgh, followed by a service at 11 a.m. Burial will follow at Beth Shalom Cemetery in Shaler.
Sean D. Hamill: shamill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2579.
First Published: November 5, 2015, 5:00 a.m.