Doctor’s Orders

BY MY FLESH I SEE G-D Hylton Lightman knew he wanted to be a doctor since he was five but it took medical school to convince him that G-d runs the world “In our second year we dissected cadavers. I said to myself the body is just too perfect. There must be a Creator” (Photos: Amir Levy)

Y ou could almost miss Dr. Hylton (Chaim Yitzchak) Lightman’s pediatric practice on a quiet street catty-corner from the Torah Academy for Girls elementary school in Far Rockaway. There’s no prominent shingle outside to trumpet his presence just a side door leading into a very ordinary-looking white suburban house.

But Dr. Lightman isn’t a quiet retiring sort not when he has something to say. As one of the most popular pediatricians in Far Rockaway and the Five Towns — evidenced by the bustling practice inside his office — his finger rests quite literally on the pulse of his community. When he encounters problems he doesn’t hesitate to state his piece and step up to the plate.

Take this past March shortly before Purim. “I got disgusted by what Purim has degenerated into ” he says. “Too many boys get dangerously drunk and stop behaving like bnei Torah.” At the invitation of Mesivta Ateres Yaakov he spoke for the second year in a row on Taanis Esther about what will happen if they get so drunk they have to be hospitalized. To drive the point home he brought along the accoutrements of such hospital stays a gastric tube and a Foley catheter and proceeded to explain in chilling graphic detail the painful experience they will endure should such equipment become necessary.