DR. LIONEL BARRAU – BOARD CERTIFIED NEPHROLOGIST
It has been a long journey for Dr. Lionel Barrau, from his native Haiti to a position as a Board Certified Nephrologist (kidney specialist) with a group medical practice in Lake Success, Long Island.
One of seven children, he is the youngest of five brothers (two sisters are younger still,) who might have gone into the family’s insurance business. Instead, he took inspiration from an older brother, Serge, who went to work for the United Nations (UN), and sought higher education abroad.
In 1960, during particularly vicious warfare in the Congo’s Katanga province in Africa, Serge Barrau died in a plane crash, which also claimed the life of the UN’s then-Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjld and 13 others.
Inspired both by his brother’s sacrifice and the family ethic of concern, Barrau was even more determined to become a doctor. He enrolled at a medical school in Spain the following year.
After graduation, Barrau returned to his native land to “look for work.” “But there was no opportunity for me there” he said, with a tinge of sadness.
At the time, an obscure country doctor, Francois Duvalier had become Haiti’s all-powerful President-for-Life “Papa Doc.” His iron-fisted rule sped the country’s transformation from the region’s wealthiest in the 18th century, to its poorest, with virtually no health infrastructure.
In 1967, Barrau emigrated to the U.S., and studied English at the University of Miami. A year later, he secured a medical internship at the Queens Hospital Center, an affiliate of Long Island Jewish Hospital (LIJ), where he completed his residency. He also acquired Board certification in Internal Medicine.
Barrau joined in a local private practice in 1975, maintaining affiliations with Deepdale Hospital in Little Neck, LIJ in Lake Success and St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, Long Island. He rose to be head of the Nephrology Department at Deepdale until that facility closed in the early 1990’s. At St. Francis, which is a world-renown hospital for heart surgery, Barrau served as President of the Medical Staff from 2004-6.
Along the way, he casually mentions, “I married an Irish girl.”
When asked what first attracted her to Barrau, Michealeen, his wife of 27 years laughs. “He came over to me, and that was that. I’m a nurse, and I was impressed by his kindness and caring.” She calls her husband “a brilliant diagnostician” who has a “particular feeling for children.” They have three of their own, a girl and two boys.
According to his wife, they used to travel to Haiti often, not just to visit family, but also to treat orphans in Cite-de-Soleil, a slum area of the capital, Port-au-Prince. “I stopped going a while back, because there were so many kidnappings. I’m a red head and always draw attention.” she says, adding, “On his last trip to the orphanage in January, he came down with Dengue Fever, but it hasn’t stopped him.”
Barrau admits that conditions in his homeland may do what the Fever couldn’t. “It’s gotten worse and worse- it just isn’t safe” he says. But he may make one more trip for now, because “There’s a nine-month old baby girl in the orphanage who I want to bring to St. Francis for open-heart surgery.”
