I was born in southern California in 1954, raised in Berkeley during
the sixties (enough said), moved to Philadelphia for high school where I met my
future wife, Susannah, then moved back to the bay area after high school. Susannah and I got married in 1975. I did a variety of jobs eventually working in
the computer industry. Our son was born
in 1982. We moved from the Bay Area to
Washington State when Lionel was 18 months old.
At the age of 27 I had an epiphany that I wanted to become a
physician – I felt it was the right work for me. However I had not finished college and had at
least 3 years to complete my degree. I
added up the number of years it would take me to complete my training and
realized it was at least 12 years and that I would be forty. I mentally gave up my dream figuring we had a
son and I needed to provide for my family.
Susannah would have none of it.
She pushed me to pursue my dream.
She helped me see that I would be forty some day and I would either be a
doctor or not be a doctor. It was a
choice. So after some effort I entered
the University of Washington to complete my undergraduate degree. I graduated in 1986 and entered medical
school also at the UW.
I have to say I loved
medical school. The pure joy of studying
medicine is hard to explain. It is such
a privilege to serve people in the practice of medicine. Medical school is the first time you get a
taste of this world. I thrived there.
Economically for our family it was definitely a huge challenge, but
we made ends meet by my working part time through my undergraduate studies and the
1st two years of medical school, Susannah working as a hair stylist,
grants, loans and some plain dumb luck.
After graduating from the UW School of Medicine in 1990, we moved to
Ann Arbor, MI for my residency in Pediatrics. Then in 1993 we moved to
Vancouver, WA where I went to work for Kaiser Permanente.
In my over 20 years working at Kaiser, I practiced pediatrics in the
Vancouver area. In the last eight years
with Kaiser, I was honored to be on the senior leadership team of the medical
group as the Medical Director of Human Resources. This meant I did a huge amount of
training/teaching/coaching of physicians.
I also had the “privilege” dealing with discipline issue where the
physicians were concerned. With over
1,000 doctors in our group, it pretty much meant I was really busy!
I retired in March of 2014 at the age of 60. After my retirement I did some part time work
with Kaiser’s marketing and sales group, specifically meeting with employers to
discuss the health of their employees (rest assured, HIPAA rules were
followed) and specific strategies to improve the health of their employees.
I did this work until I was diagnosed with ALS around March of
2015.
