Thursday, June 27, 2024
Dr. Hy Penn was a pediatrician in Houston thirty-six years ago and recently retired. He did magic tricks for his young patients.
“I had patients that would fake illness just to be able to come to the doctor to see magic. After they got to the office, they would tell their mother, ‘I’m feeling better, now can I see some magic?’ I would always oblige. I would do card tricks, make things disappear, appear, or change. I always had to have something new because I had some patients that would always ask for a new trick to see.”
He’s been doing magic tricks a long time. His grandmother encouraged his magic.
“She was living in New York when I was younger and would send me magic tricks in the mail. I would work on them, and by fifth grade, I was performing for my brother’s friends. It became a lifelong hobby.”
He saw kids in hospitals.
“I’d walk into the room, and they’re not smiling and looking sad. They may have cancer with multiple IV’s in them. When I’d leave, they’d be happy, laughing, and excited. It’s rewarding to see that.”
He’s in several organizations having to do with magic. He says it’s good to be a part of that fraternity - that’s where he has learned some new tricks. Dr. Penn also put together a seminar for doctors to be presented in a course that he calls continuing medical education with magic.
“I teach them how to use magic tricks in their practice to make their patients comfortable so they would want to stay and not run away.”
He performs for non-profit groups and schools and doesn’t get paid for it. He does it just for fun. Dr. Penn’s parents were Holocaust survivors.
“They didn’t talk much about it when we were young, but everybody knew my mother was a survivor because she had a number tattoo on her left forearm. She was in nine different death camps. People knew her story. She was not ashamed to talk about it when people asked about her number. She never hid it from anybody. As we got older, they started talking more and more and I think they finally realized that if they don’t talk about it, nobody’s going to know their story and what happened during that terrible time in history. Even though they went through terrible times, they taught us it was important to not look back, to continually move forward and do the right thing in life.”
Dr. Penn is a docent at the Houston Holocaust Museum.
“In the world today, it’s important not to forget the past. That’s how things repeat themselves if you don’t remember what happened.”
