Middletown pyschiatrist worked until his final days

Martin A. Rush, a Rhodes scholar and Middletown’s first psychiatrist, died Monday, Oct. 25 at the age of 91.

Suiter, who served as his secretary for eight years, said she will always remember his medical honesty.

“His specialty was pyschotherapy,” she said “But if he thought his specialty wouldn’t help (a patient), he would come back out and tell me to give them back their money because he didn’t want to waste their time.

“I always thought that was so honest,” she said.

After five years as a family physician, Rush switched to psychiatry in the early 1960s.

In 1948, Rush earned an A.B. magna cum laude at Miami University. He graduated with an M.D. in 1953 from the University of Cincinnati Medical College. He left his class for two years to attend Oxford University in England from 1949-51. There, he earned a B.A. and an M.A. on a Rhodes Scholarship.

Early in life, daughter Cynthia Rush, recognized the stigma attached to the field of mental health.

“(People) would look at me like they wanted to make sure I knew they weren’t real cozy with a man who was a psychiatrist,” she said. “If you admitted that you knew Dr. Rush, you were admitting to the world there was something wrong with you. At that time people looked at mental health problems like Leprosy.”

The stigma lessened over the years. In 1963 Rush established an outpatient daytime treatment center which functioned over 30 years, most recently as The Stress Center.

Rush’s retirement became official about a month ago. In his later years, he would practice two afternoons a week.

Rush went deaf in the mid-90s from what Cynthia said was probably a result of his service in World War II. He was a bomber pilot.

He served 1942-44 with the 461st bomb group in the 767th squadron.

“The patients loved him so much they would write out what they wanted to say to him,” she said. “One of his patients said to him, ‘I don’t care if you’re stone-deaf. You listen to me better than the others with good hearing.’

Rush wrote two books, “Decoding the Secret Language of Your Body” and “Music Bravely Ringing.”

Rush married his wife, Mary Elizabeth (“Betty”) in 1941.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Elizabeth, son David, daughter Cynthia, brothers Richard and William, as well as a host of other relatives.

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