People Of Michigan Medicine: A Bow-Tie Wearing, Rubber-Chicken Carrying, Fiercely-Devoted Pediatrician

Originally posted by Michigan Medicine Headlines

Approximately a 6-minute read

Welcome to the next installment of The People of Michigan Medicine, a place where we highlight the personal side of things. In this space, we ask colleagues to provide experiences, talents and viewpoints personal to them, while also sharing what makes Michigan Medicine a special place to be. 

This month’s spotlight is on Gary Freed, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatrician at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and the Canton Health Center. Freed’s eccentric personality – and outfits – often bring levity to a high-stress environment and make the organization a more welcoming place for patients and families.  

This is Freed’s story.

An unforgettable look

When you sit across from him, the first thing that stands out is what's around his neck.

That's on purpose.

Gary Freed knows that you’ll probably forget his name but will remember the bow tie.

“I started wearing bow ties in medical school,” said Freed. “My wife, Eileen, gave me one, and I started wearing it. I liked it and got more. And then it started to become a signature.

“By the time I was a resident, I only wore bow ties. I found that many people wouldn't necessarily remember me, but they'd remember the guy who wore the bow tie.”

Freed claims to have about 120 bow ties now, in a spectrum of colors and some for special occasions like the holidays. The ties also serve a practical purpose in his work as a pediatrician.

“Kids like them,” said Freed. “And they can't grab and yank on my tie, and it won't fall into an open diaper.”

No ordinary chicken

Freed seems attracted to whimsical things like bow ties. He also plays the banjo, likes adventure movies and has an unusual travel companion for the many trips he takes for business and leisure.

If you just happen to see a guy at Detroit Metro Airport wearing a bow tie and a backpack with a rubber chicken sticking out of one of the pockets, it's probably Freed.

“When I graduated high school, I was going to spend the summer in Israel, and on the way there, I backpacked through Europe for three weeks, taking trains,” said Freed. “Before I left, somebody gave me a rubber chicken, and I thought I would just bring it with me because it was good for a laugh.

“I had it sticking out of my backpack on the trains, either the feet or the head, and people started asking me about it. It was a great way to meet people.”

It still is. To this day, Freed travels with a rubber chicken, although the original and some others have been lost or retired. He estimates that he's on chicken No. 8 or 9 and said that it's more than just a conversation piece now. 

“I started taking pictures of it with me wherever I was,” said Freed. “And that grew over the years to not only taking pictures of it anywhere in the world or at famous landmarks, but then also with famous people. Everyone loves to take a picture with the chicken.”

Freed said, among others, Nancy Pelosi, Wolf Blitzer, Kerri Russel and Salman Rushdie have all posed with the chicken. He's also proud that his three adult children are carrying on the tradition.

“Now my kids all have their own chickens,” said Freed. “And they travel with their chickens and take pictures all over the world.”

Looking through a different lens

Rubber chickens and bow ties are just one side of Freed. The work Freed is all business. When he talks about the job, his speech is polished and measured.

He tells the story of being a resident in Houston and working with a lot of Spanish-speaking immigrant families. Although he speaks some Spanish, Freed admitted that he was always grateful to come across young kids who spoke English because it would speed up the process.

“Sometimes you'd be working with a family and the 7-year-old kid spoke perfect English,” said Freed. “If that happened, you'd use that 7-year-old kid to translate for you. I thought that was wonderful."

However, a couple of years later, he heard a presentation by a Latino researcher who had done a study to see how good those 7-year-old translators really were.

“Not surprisingly, they were terrible,” said Freed. “What was striking to me and changed my life at that time was the realization that I never would have thought to do that study.

“It took a Latino researcher who had a totally different perspective than myself, who saw the world through a different lens, that helped me to see something I never would have seen on my own. That made me ask: ‘How many other things am I missing out there?’”  

Pilot programs

Freed is still asking that question as he pilots two new programs: the Program for Equity in Adolescent and Child Health (PEACH) and the Michigan Child Health Equity Collaborative (MI-CHEC).

Both programs are the culmination of Freed’s more than 30 years of experience in children's health services research and his desire to find solutions, not just problems, for pediatric health equity.

“I realized that a big part of my career was finding problems,” said Freed. “In pediatrics, we’ve been doing studies in social determinants of health since before I was born, and I’m old.

“I’m glad a lot of people are working on addressing poverty because it’s really important, and I don’t want to minimize that. But I started to think about which things are actually within the control of the health-care system. What are things we can do right now that can make a difference for kids and their families while the people who are working on those long-term problems like poverty try to fix them?”

Freed said that while he looked at numerous studies showing adults often receive inequitable care because of their gender, race, ethnicity, income level and other factors, he hypothesized -- with very little research to draw on -- that children probably experience the same fate.

Freed then asked: “What would be a mechanism that we could see if we were treating kids differently without realizing it, whether it be treating boys and girls differently, or people in wheelchairs differently, or kids who are poor differently, or kids of different races and ethnicities?”

Freed – fiercely focused, with thoughts of bow ties and rubber chickens clearly now in the background -- admitted that these are tough questions but said they must be asked to bring about change.

“We have to be willing to be a little bit uncomfortable,” said Freed. “And I believe we can and should have the courage to look to see how we can do better, not to blame and shame, but to figure out from a systems level where we fall short and where we can make a difference and provide more equitable care.”

With retirement about five years away, Freed said that PEACH and Mi-CHEC are his “terminal” research projects.

Back to his whimsical side, he talks of potential grandchildren and more travel, saying, “Often my favorite destination is the next place I haven’t been before.”

He also mentions retirement will give him the freedom of time to spend the day reading a book, to be able to visit faraway family and friends, and to reconnect and nurture relationships stymied by distance.

Freed then offered one final retirement desire as the interview concludes: “I want to play a lot of miniature golf,” he said with a laugh.