{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/bc3st7gj18/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Mayer Davidson, 4/19/23"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Dr. Mayer Davidson is a co-founder of the Venice Family Clinic."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_011"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Dr. Mayer Davidson is a co-founder of the Venice Family Clinic."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/242/859/small/Dr.Mayer_Davidson.mp4_1718823787.jpg?1718823791","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129352/file/242859","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Dr._Mayer_Davidson_.mp4"]},"duration":696.72533,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/242/859/small/Dr.Mayer_Davidson.mp4_1718823787.jpg?1718823791","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129352/file/242859/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129352/file/242859/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/242/859/original/Dr._Mayer_Davidson_.mp4?1718823777","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":696.72533,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129352/file/242859","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129352/file/242859/transcript/68045","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Dr. Mayer Davidson Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129352/file/242859/transcript/68045/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:08:21 - 00:00:11:06\nApril the 11th, 1935.\n\n00:00:11:06 - 00:00:17:05\nWhen I first arrived in 1969,\rit was as a junior faculty member at UCLA.\n\n00:00:17:05 - 00:00:20:00\nIn those days, we did not have,\n\n00:00:20:00 - 00:00:23:20\nrequirements to be on call \rin the evening or weekends.\n\n00:00:23:20 - 00:00:28:00\nAnd so I wanted to use\rsome of that free time in order\n\n00:00:28:00 - 00:00:31:02\nto try to get medical care\rto people who didn't have it.\n\n00:00:31:02 - 00:00:32:07\nIn those days\n\n00:00:32:07 - 00:00:34:10\nvery few older people had it.\n\n00:00:34:10 - 00:00:38:16\nMatter of fact, older\rpeople were the leading, group\n\n00:00:38:16 - 00:00:42:00\nin the poverty area in, in the country.\n\n00:00:42:00 - 00:00:48:14\nAnd so I asked a colleague of mine,\rat UCLA, and he directed me toward Venice.\n\n00:00:48:14 - 00:00:50:11\nHe said, there's a big issue with Venice.\n\n00:00:50:11 - 00:00:53:01\nThey don't have enough medical care there.\n\n00:00:53:01 - 00:00:56:18\nWhen I directed my attention\rto Venice and looked into it,\n\n00:00:56:18 - 00:01:01:17\nI found that it was a community\rof about 50,000 people at that time.\n\n00:01:01:17 - 00:01:05:10\nIt was evenly split, among three groups.\n\n00:01:05:10 - 00:01:07:21\nFirst there were,\n\n00:01:07:21 - 00:01:11:20\nAfrican-Americans, \rand second, there were Latinos.\n\n00:01:11:20 - 00:01:14:19\nAnd third, there was a white, uh, group.\n\n00:01:14:19 - 00:01:17:12\nThe white group was\rcomposed of two components.\n\n00:01:17:12 - 00:01:19:18\nOne of which were, older\n\n00:01:19:18 - 00:01:22:20\nretired people, and the other was,\n\n00:01:22:20 - 00:01:25:18\nin those days, the term was hippies.\n\n00:01:25:18 - 00:01:28:19\nOften, in those in the art world.\n\n00:01:28:19 - 00:01:31:19\nAnd they had a problem with,\n\n00:01:31:19 - 00:01:35:01\nmedical care coverage because,\n\n00:01:35:01 - 00:01:38:11\nalthough there were six doctors\rthere, only one of them would\n\n00:01:38:11 - 00:01:40:23\never see patients that had MediCal.\n\n00:01:40:23 - 00:01:44:11\nAnd he would only see them\ronce one afternoon a week.\n\n00:01:44:11 - 00:01:47:23\nIf you were sick at any other time,\ryou had to go to UCLA,\n\n00:01:48:00 - 00:01:51:14\nto the emergency room\rand the people in Venice,\n\n00:01:51:14 - 00:01:54:01\nI have also found out\rthat there was a group\n\n00:01:54:01 - 00:01:57:12\nthat had been trying for three years\rto get medical care there.\n\n00:01:57:12 - 00:02:01:09\nNot very successfully. \rIt was headed by,\n\n00:02:01:09 - 00:02:04:22\nthat their chair of the Venice\rHealth Councils was called.\n\n00:02:04:22 - 00:02:09:22\nBelieve that the way to get, good health\rwas to have organic foods.\n\n00:02:09:22 - 00:02:12:23\nAnd that was their main\rthrust at the time.\n\n00:02:12:23 - 00:02:16:01\nBut the people at Venice said that the,\n\n00:02:16:01 - 00:02:19:17\nthe clinics at UCLA treated them\rlike guinea pigs, and they didn't\n\n00:02:19:17 - 00:02:23:15\nlike to go there.  But they had to\rif they were sick at any other time.\n\n00:02:23:15 - 00:02:25:14\nAnd if they didn't have MediCal.\n\n00:02:25:14 - 00:02:29:06\nAnd a lot of people were, had\rno medical care coverage at that time.\n\n00:02:29:06 - 00:02:33:23\nAnd so, there was a tremendous\rneed to get medical coverage,\n\n00:02:33:23 - 00:02:35:09\nfor the people in Venice.\n\n00:02:35:09 - 00:02:39:01\nThe Venice Health Council\rwas composed of three groups of people.\n\n00:02:39:01 - 00:02:42:09\nUh, seven, uh, \rbusinessmen and professionals.\n\n00:02:42:09 - 00:02:44:09\nSeven artists,\n\n00:02:44:09 - 00:02:46:20\nAnd seven community members.\n\n00:02:46:20 - 00:02:50:04\nAnd so that was a good\rcross-section of Venice at the time.\n\n00:02:50:04 - 00:02:53:11\nThe county, opened a clinic\n\n00:02:53:11 - 00:02:57:00\nthat they said was to\rtake care of people in Venice.\n\n00:02:57:00 - 00:03:02:17\nUnfortunately, the clinic was at\r26th and Pico, which is, several miles away.\n\n00:03:02:17 - 00:03:06:23\nAnd I'm not sure how the\rhealth council got this impression, but,\n\n00:03:06:23 - 00:03:11:06\nI was told that they were under\rthe impression that the clinic\n\n00:03:11:06 - 00:03:16:17\nwas going to open in, in Venice,\rbe available 24 hours a day.\n\n00:03:16:17 - 00:03:19:00\nAnd so when the clinic actually opened,\n\n00:03:19:00 - 00:03:24:01\nand that was in November of 1969,\rthey actually went out and protested.\n\n00:03:24:01 - 00:03:28:05\nNow, Doctor Rossman was\ra chair of the Public Health\n\n00:03:28:05 - 00:03:31:05\nCommittee of the Los Angeles\rCounty Medical Association.\n\n00:03:31:06 - 00:03:35:18\nAnd as such, he went to the opening\rof this clinic at 26th and Pico.\n\n00:03:35:18 - 00:03:38:02\nAnd he saw these people protesting.\n\n00:03:38:02 - 00:03:40:22\nAnd, he went up to them\rand asked what was going on.\n\n00:03:40:22 - 00:03:45:05\nAnd they explained to him,\rand he, he diffused the situation.\n\n00:03:45:05 - 00:03:50:19\nHe said, listen, stop your protests\rand I'll work with you in the LA County\n\n00:03:50:19 - 00:03:54:07\nMedical Association will work with you.\rWe’ll try to get you health care here.\n\n00:03:54:07 - 00:03:55:18\nAnd they did.\n\n00:03:55:18 - 00:04:00:06\nAnd so in November 1969,\rhe joined the Venice Health Council.\n\n00:04:00:06 - 00:04:02:16\nAnd they tried to get medical care there.\n\n00:04:02:16 - 00:04:07:10\nAnd uh, but when I got involved, in 1970,\n\n00:04:07:10 - 00:04:11:21\nthe June, in 1970s, when I,\rmy first experience with the Venice\n\n00:04:11:21 - 00:04:16:03\nHealth Council, they unfortunately\rwere not able to get it at the time.\n\n00:04:16:03 - 00:04:19:11\nAnd so he and I and\n\n00:04:19:11 - 00:04:23:14\nanother person,\rhis name was Jim Freed\n\n00:04:23:14 - 00:04:26:23\nhe was, he ran a\rdental clinic in Venice.\n\n00:04:26:23 - 00:04:29:08\nAnd so let me explain his role in this.\n\n00:04:29:08 - 00:04:33:20\nThe, the state had a small grant\rto open a dental clinic in Venice.\n\n00:04:33:20 - 00:04:38:18\nIt was, Rose Avenue and\rLincoln Boulevard that would be open at night.\n\n00:04:38:18 - 00:04:40:07\nAnd they would be able to train\n\n00:04:40:07 - 00:04:44:07\ntheir dental students there\rwith faculty supervision\n\n00:04:44:07 - 00:04:48:22\nand that's how he was involved,\ron the Venice Health Council.\n\n00:04:48:22 - 00:04:52:14\nAnd so when I got involved\rwith Doctor Rossman,\n\n00:04:52:14 - 00:04:55:22\nwell, there's obviously you needed\rthree things in order to have a clinic.\n\n00:04:55:22 - 00:04:57:11\nYou had to have a site,\n\n00:04:57:11 - 00:05:00:22\nand you had to have volunteers\rto take care of the patients.\n\n00:05:00:22 - 00:05:04:15\nAnd it turns out you also\rhad to have malpractice coverage.\n\n00:05:04:15 - 00:05:07:05\nSo, I went to a party,\n\n00:05:07:05 - 00:05:10:12\nI never met Doctor Freed,\rbut I just went up to him.\n\n00:05:10:12 - 00:05:14:19\nParty run by UCLA’s\rPublic Health Department,\n\n00:05:14:19 - 00:05:19:00\n\rand asked him if, if, if he would be,\n\n00:05:19:00 - 00:05:20:17\nokay if we tried to\n\n00:05:20:17 - 00:05:23:19\nput a medical clinic\rin his dental clinic in the evening.\n\n00:05:23:19 - 00:05:28:05\nThe dental clinic on Lincoln\rand Rose was open during the day\n\n00:05:28:05 - 00:05:32:21\nfor the dental students\rand the faculty to, to treat patients.\n\n00:05:32:21 - 00:05:35:17\nI asked him if it would be okay\n\n00:05:35:17 - 00:05:40:01\nif we use his clinic in the evening,\rif we could see medical patients there.\n\n00:05:40:01 - 00:05:44:22\nAnd he, as a member of the Venice Health\rCouncil, was very, uh, agreeable to that.\n\n00:05:44:22 - 00:05:46:18\nSo we had the site. \n\n00:05:46:18 - 00:05:52:04\nDr. uh, Rossman, uh, asked his\rfellow private practitioners\n\n00:05:52:04 - 00:05:55:07\nand they said they would\rvolunteer at such a clinic.\n\n00:05:55:07 - 00:05:59:18\nAnd I checked with the,\ruh, the in, the internal medicine residents\n\n00:05:59:18 - 00:06:03:14\nand interns and a number of them\rsaid they would volunteer at night\n\n00:06:03:14 - 00:06:06:16\nalso to see clinics, to see patients.\n\n00:06:06:16 - 00:06:11:16\nSo we had the three,\rthe two basic ingredients,  \n\n00:06:11:16 - 00:06:15:17\nand then we had to work on getting the third,\rwhich was the malpractice insurance.\n\n00:06:15:17 - 00:06:19:11\nFortunately, the, uh, Lyndon Johnson's\n\n00:06:19:11 - 00:06:23:08\nprogram, uh, was for health care\n\n00:06:23:08 - 00:06:27:04\nwas, still had some money left in it\n\n00:06:27:04 - 00:06:30:07\nbefore it stopped at the end of 1969.\n\n00:06:30:07 - 00:06:34:10\nAnd so we were able to get\rsome malpractice coverage from them.\n\n00:06:34:10 - 00:06:38:00\nAnd so we had the,\rall the ingredients to open a clinic,\n\n00:06:38:00 - 00:06:42:02\nwhich was the site, the volunteers\rand the malpractice coverage.\n\n00:06:42:02 - 00:06:46:09\nAnd the clinic opened,\rOctober 12th, 1970.\n\n00:06:46:09 - 00:06:48:07\nAnd we started to see patients.\n\n00:06:48:07 - 00:06:50:17\n\rWhen the clinic first opened\n\n00:06:50:17 - 00:06:54:03\nthere were long,\rlong lines around the block.\n\n00:06:54:03 - 00:06:57:03\nWe could only see\rabout half of the patients because\n\n00:06:57:03 - 00:07:00:07\nof the limited time and volunteers we had.\n\n00:07:00:07 - 00:07:04:23\nSo, as I said, the Venice\rHealth Council had their own,\n\n00:07:04:23 - 00:07:08:06\nissues and their own ideas\rabout a medical clinic.\n\n00:07:08:06 - 00:07:11:09\nBut among all of us,\rwe were able to work out\n\n00:07:11:09 - 00:07:15:12\non a purely volunteer basis,\rhow to get this clinic up and running.\n\n00:07:15:12 - 00:07:20:08\nOne of the people working at the clinic\rwas a physician's assistant.\n\n00:07:20:08 - 00:07:23:22\nHer name was Kendra Gorlitsky,\ra marvelous individual.\n\n00:07:23:22 - 00:07:28:11\nAnd her husband was a physician\rin, uh, in the West Side.\n\n00:07:28:11 - 00:07:31:20\nAnd they went on a, uhmmm...\n\n00:07:31:20 - 00:07:34:07\na tour, a cruise,\n\n00:07:34:07 - 00:07:37:09\nand on the cruise they met, an older couple\n\n00:07:37:09 - 00:07:40:04\nIrma and Lou Colon.\n\n00:07:40:04 - 00:07:44:15\nAnd the story goes\rthat Irma and Lou were bored with\n\n00:07:44:15 - 00:07:47:03\nhanging around with\rthese older people that,\n\n00:07:47:03 - 00:07:50:08\nwe're just talking, whatever\rolder people talked about at the time.\n\n00:07:50:08 - 00:07:52:16\nAnd so they sought out\n\n00:07:52:16 - 00:07:54:10\nyounger people,\n\n00:07:54:10 - 00:07:56:23\nthe Gorlitskys and Kendra\n\n00:07:56:23 - 00:08:00:21\nput a, a plea out for Irma.\n\n00:08:00:21 - 00:08:04:14\nIrma, by the way,\rwas a political fundraiser.\n\n00:08:04:14 - 00:08:08:18\nAnd so, Kendra asked her\rif she would turn her attention\n\n00:08:08:18 - 00:08:11:20\nto try to help the clinic\rget some funding.\n\n00:08:11:20 - 00:08:14:13\nAnd then Irma, bless her heart,\n\n00:08:14:13 - 00:08:19:23\nwas, had the idea\rthat there are artists in Venice.\n\n00:08:19:23 - 00:08:25:07\nSo we ought to do an art walk\rand have the artists have their,\n\n00:08:25:07 - 00:08:29:09\npieces that they would show\rthe public and charge for that.\n\n00:08:29:09 - 00:08:34:21\nAnd we would also have a tour so we,\rthe public could go to all of their art galleries\n\n00:08:34:21 - 00:08:38:01\n\rand that would draw a lot of people in.\n\n00:08:38:01 - 00:08:41:14\nAnd she and her friends\rin the Beverly Hills,\n\n00:08:41:14 - 00:08:44:23\nmostly, frankly, the \rJewish community put on The Art Walk\n\n00:08:44:23 - 00:08:51:12\nI think in 1978 was the first one.\rAnd we raised $50,000, $25, $50,000.\n\n00:08:51:12 - 00:08:54:21\nAnd that really set\rthe clinic on its course. \n\n00:08:54:21 - 00:08:57:04\nAnd expanded year after year.\n\n00:08:57:04 - 00:08:58:13\nThere would be more artists,\n\n00:08:58:13 - 00:09:02:02\nand the artists were very much \rinvolved in setting it up.\n\n00:09:02:02 - 00:09:04:09\nLet’s see if I remember\rsome of their names.\n\n00:09:04:09 - 00:09:05:22\nFrank Gehry was one of them.\n\n00:09:05:22 - 00:09:09:05\nLaddie Day, er, Laddie Dill,\rJohn was one of them.\n\n00:09:09:05 - 00:09:13:09\nA group of them started\rand got their artist friends together\n\n00:09:13:09 - 00:09:17:03\nand helped get it going,\ralong with Irma and her friends.\n\n00:09:17:03 - 00:09:22:01\nSo it was, it was a marvelous,\rworking together of those two communities.\n\n00:09:22:01 - 00:09:23:13\nUhmmm... the other thing\n\n00:09:23:13 - 00:09:27:07\nthat helped us at that time was UCLA.\n\n00:09:27:07 - 00:09:31:00\nIt, it turned out that...\n\n00:09:31:00 - 00:09:35:05\nI wanted UCLA to be involved because\n\n00:09:35:05 - 00:09:36:21\nthere was a big need there.\n\n00:09:36:21 - 00:09:42:02\nThey needed a place to train,\rpeople, to train residents\n\n00:09:42:02 - 00:09:47:05\nand staff and train the\rpeople in the outpatient setting.\n\n00:09:47:05 - 00:09:50:18\nAnd UCLA, we had some\rpeople who were provosts\n\n00:09:50:18 - 00:09:54:06\nand in the administration were very,\n\n00:09:54:06 - 00:09:55:21\nkeen on helping us.\n\n00:09:55:21 - 00:10:01:12\nAnd they were able, in about 1978\ror 9, to get the Venice Family Clinic\n\n00:10:01:12 - 00:10:05:01\nto sign a contract\rwith the Regents of UCLA.\n\n00:10:05:01 - 00:10:10:07\nWe became a department at UCLA, and\rthat gave us that malpractice coverage.\n\n00:10:10:07 - 00:10:13:15\nIt also gave us a little bit\rof extra money from UCLA.\n\n00:10:13:15 - 00:10:18:09\nAnd so that was also a very important\rthing to keep us, to keep us going.\n\n00:10:18:09 - 00:10:20:01\nWe opened a dental clinic.\n\n00:10:20:01 - 00:10:22:14\nWe opened what we call\ran integrative medicine clinic,\n\n00:10:22:14 - 00:10:27:22\nacupuncture, care of, chiropractor,\rbehavioral health and all through\n\n00:10:27:22 - 00:10:31:04\nthese years we've been able to get,\rfortunately, more and more support.\n\n00:10:31:04 - 00:10:33:04\nAnd we're able to, uh...\n\n00:10:33:04 - 00:10:35:08\nsee more and more patients.\n\n00:10:35:08 - 00:10:39:22\nWe have, about 80 or 90\rfull time staff that are,\n\n00:10:39:22 - 00:10:41:11\nproviders.\n\n00:10:41:11 - 00:10:45:17\nAnd we have a volunteer group\rthat is up to 500 people,\n\n00:10:45:17 - 00:10:50:13\nabout 300 physicians and,\rand a large number of other volunteers.\n\n00:10:50:13 - 00:10:54:04\nWe actually provide food services\rfor food insecure people.\n\n00:10:54:04 - 00:10:59:09\nWe have a Head Start program that takes\rcare of a tremendous number of families.\n\n00:10:59:09 - 00:11:02:11\nAnd so this has become\ra tremendously successful\n\n00:11:02:11 - 00:11:07:20\nbased on so many people\rand the hard work of all our CEOs.\n\n00:11:07:20 - 00:11:08:19\nWhat can I say?\n\n00:11:08:19 - 00:11:10:23\nI'm so proud of what\rwe've been able to accomplish.\n\n00:11:10:23 - 00:11:13:15\nWell, I think the\reasiest thing to say is it's\n\n00:11:13:15 - 00:11:15:09\nprobably the most important\rthing I've done.\n\n00:11:15:09 - 00:11:19:16\nI've been in academics and done\rresearch and taught and seen patients.\n\n00:11:19:16 - 00:11:22:20\nBut in terms of the whole\rspectrum, this is obviously\n\n00:11:22:20 - 00:11:27:03\nmade a bigger contribution\rthan anything else I could have done.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129352/file/242859#t=0.0,696.72533"}]}]}]}