close

Peters Township pediatrician looks back on three generations of patients

By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read
article image -

Think back to when you were 5 or so, and it was time to visit the pediatrician.

For young Robert Argentine, that pretty much meant an opportunity for job shadowing.

“I just kind of knew that’s always what I wanted to do,” he said. “There wasn’t any big revelation. It’s just the way I felt from when I was a little kid.”

As he approached his retirement on the final weekday of 2017, the Peters Township resident reminisced about his 38-year career of caring for children, which began in two different ways with Dr. Robert Macdonald of Mt. Lebanon.

Back in the 1950s and ’60s, he was Argentine’s pediatrician. And they became partners at the end of the ’70s.

“He was getting very elderly at that point,” and he wanted to be sure that his patients would be taken care of, and I, of course, was looking to get started,” Argentine recalled. “I learned a lot from him. I don’t know if I ever knew another pediatrician who cared so much for his patients as he did.”

The practice since has evolved to become CCP – South Hills, which has offices in Peters and Bethel Park as part of the Children’s Community Pediatrics network, under the leadership of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.

Everything has come a long way since the days of Macdonald’s compact office at Cochran Road and Cedar Boulevard.

“It was pretty rough at first, because it was just us the two of us,” Argentine said. That means you were on call every other night, and we’d get calls all through the night. We didn’t have anything like a phone triage. It just came to us through the answering service.”

In 1981, the year before Macdonald retired, Dr. Charles Silverstein joined the practice, with which he continues to this day.

“I’ve worked with Chuck off and on for 40 years, since I was a resident and he was an intern,” Argentine said about their late-’70s training at Children’s Hospital. “He’s a good friend besides being a good partner.”

Eventually coming on board were Dr. Michael Frac and Dr. Rebecca Bickel, both of whom still are on staff.

“Then our group became one of the five founding groups for Children’s Community Pediatrics,” Argentine explained. “At that point, the feeling was that it was very difficult for small groups to deal with the insurance companies, the thought being that if you banded together, you could effectively have a stronger voice. I have a measure of pride in that I had some input in the very start of that.”

The Dormont native earned his bachelor’s degree from La Salle University in Philadelphia and doctorate from the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey.

He met his wife, Priscilla – Sas, as everyone calls her – while in residency at Children’s Hospital. She had just started working there after graduating from the West Virginia University School of Nursing.

“She’d say that all the other nurses were falling all over me, and I never noticed it,” he recalled. “So she asked me out. She made a little homemade dinner, and I fell in love right away.”

They have been married for 39 years and have two sons, Christopher and Peter.

“You know how they talk about Polaris, the one true star?” he said. “That’s what she is for me.”

As far as his career, Argentine said he feels privileged to have served so many people.

“I think I’ve done what God has intended me to do,” he explained. “I’ve been doing what I’m supposed to have done. And so I take great satisfaction in that.”

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $/week.

Subscribe Today