Pediatrician

Dr. Davood Badie, a Harford County pediatrician, died Monday at his Bel Air home from complications of cardiovascular disease and Parkinson's disease. He was 79. Dr. Badie, the son of a farm owner, was born and raised in Mazandaran Province, Iran. He earned his medical degree from the University of Tehran in 1955 and moved to England five years later. In 1961, he immigrated to Baltimore. Dr. Badie completed a rotating internship at Maryland General Hospital in 1962 and a residency in pediatrics at what is now the University of Maryland Medical Center two years later.

Dr. M. Larrie Blue, a retired Baltimore pediatrician whose career spanned more than 40 years, died Monday of pancreatic cancer at Sinai Hospital. He was 77 and had lived in Stevenson. "It was fitting that he died at Sinai Hospital, where he spent most of his professional career," said his wife of eight years, the former Sima Rosenthal. Dr. Blue was born in Baltimore and raised in the city's Pimlico neighborhood. He was a 1948 graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland in 1952.

David Josephs, a retired pediatrician who practiced in suburban Baltimore for nearly 50 years, died of cancer July 18 at his Pikesville home. He was 84. "He dispensed wisdom not found in medical books," said Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg of the Beth Tfiloh Congregation. "He was old school, a straight arrow who always walked on the proper path. He healed his children in body and soul." Born in Sanford, N.C., he earned degrees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the Medical College of Virginia.

An Ellicott City pediatrician convicted of Medicaid fraud was sentenced yesterday to 18 months of home detention and ordered to provide free medical care for uninsured children. Howard County Circuit Court Judge Diane O. Leasure imposed the sentence, which spared Dr. Alfredo J. Herrera from jail, after a hearing that featured testimony from a series of community workers and volunteers - including a state senator and the chairman of Maryland's Transplant Resource Center. Despite requests for jail time from Assistant Attorney General Catherine Schuster Pascale, who said Herrera's decision to perform unneeded tests on young children created a large number of victims, Leasure said she wasn't sure that jail would serve the interests of the state's residents.

Your beautiful new baby is healthy and home. Everything feels perfect. Until the crying starts. You hold him. You caress him. You check for a wet diaper; is it time for dinner? Everything seems on track, but the crying does not cease. All babies cry, you tell yourself as you cradle your little one in your arms. Maybe you take a walk. You try rocking him. But the baby's cries continue. Is it gas? Something more serious? Am I a terrible mother? A clueless father? The longer you pace the floor with your newborn, the louder the wails become.

Dr. William A. Niermann, a retired pediatrician and allergist who treated patients for nearly five decades, died in his sleep of heart failure Nov. 13 aboard a cruise ship returning to Florida. He was 84 and lived in Towson. Dr. Niermann was the son of a pharmacist and grew up in Huntington, W.Va. He attended the Medical College of Virginia School of Pharmacy and its School of Medicine. Family members said that because of a demand for physicians during World War II, he completed medical school in three years and graduated in 1948.

Dr. Harold Seymour Farfel, a pediatrician, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. He was 82. A doctor who prided himself on making house calls, Dr. Farfel continued until his recent illness to attend pediatric rounds at Sinai Hospital, where he was a resident from 1950 to 1952. One of the patients at his practice in Catonsville, which he opened in 1955, was a boy who would grow up to be governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., said Dr. Farfel's son, Dr. Mark Farfel of New York City.

Dr. Edwin H. T. Besson, a retired pediatrician who was the former chairman of the St. Agnes Hospital pediatric department, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, Dec. 4 at his Ellicott City home. He was 85. In a memoir, he recalled that after his birth in Carbondale, Pa., he often moved with his family and wound up living in the small town of Stockton in Worcester County. His family had suffered economic hardship in the Depression and they lost their home.

Dr. Frederick Heldrich, a pediatrician who won his colleagues' respect as a master diagnostician in nearly six decades of medical practice and teaching at St. Agnes and Johns Hopkins hospitals, died of a melanoma Tuesday at Stella Maris Hospice. The Lutherville resident was 82. Employing patience, time and a pocketful of lollipops, he diagnosed childhood diseases and conditions that had eluded other physicians, who turned to him for advice. "He had an incredible curiosity and was a master at the bedside," said Dr. George Dover, pediatrician-in-chief at the Hopkins School of Medicine.

Dr. Michael Zollicoffer speaks a mile a minute, works a mile a minute and shops a mile a minute. The exuberant 41-year-old pediatrician may live on a faster frequency than the rest of us, but he doesn't mind taking one of those minutes to discuss his wardrobe, which threatens to spill out of his Baltimore home.His several California-ized closets can't contain 400 caps, hundreds of sweaters and a complete array of clothing stamped with his med school alma mater, the University of North Carolina.