PREMIUM David Silverstein: The heart doctor who became Moi’s confidant Dr Silverstein’s death closes the story of Chicago doctor who attended to President Moi for 42 years. News Just now Listen

For nearly half a century, Dr David Silverstein listened to some of Kenya’s most powerful hearts.

Dr Silverstein’s death on Sunday morning marks the era the American-born cardiologist who pioneered modern cardiology in Kenya and served as President Moi’s personal physician for many years.

But while medicine gave him access to presidents, Cabinet ministers and political secrets, he built his reputation through something less dramatic: an insistence that every patient, powerful or ordinary, deserved his time.