William W. Smith, M.D.
Profile -- (Spring 2000 Newsletter)
[interview below]
Bouncing on the bench-seat of a Model T Ford, young Bill
Smith spent his summers on the dirt roads of rural Kansas
making calls from farm to farm with his grandfather, one of
the only doctors in the area. "I wanted to be like him,"
Smith said of his 6'2" red-haired Irish granddad.
Bill Smith became a country doctor of sorts, but in a setting
far from the cornfields and hay barns – smack dab in
the heart and soul of the glitterati and as personal physician
to some of the most famous individuals in the entertainment
industry and financial world: Beverly Hills, California. It
was his country manner and common-sense approach to medicine
that led such luminaries as Jimmy Stewart, Fred Astaire, Sam
Goldwyn, Howard Hughes, and others to beat a path to his office
door. "I guess it was just the circumstances of the time
that led me to be there rather than somewhere else,"
Smith shrugs. Some circumstances.
Like his grandfather, Smith went on to distinguish himself
in medical school. He stayed in his native California, having
spent time in San Diego and Los Angeles, where his father
was a pharmacist and a rancher. On graduating from high school,
he was admitted to Stanford University, where he obtained
his bachelor's and medical degrees. He returned to Los
Angeles for his internship and residency and began practicing
medicine in 1941.
He found that he liked teaching medicine as much as practicing
it, and thus took teaching appointments at the University
of Southern California and at the Good Hope Clinic of the
Hospital of the Good Samaritan. The need for him to be near
an urban area thus precluded his assuming the life of a country
doctor.
That's when "circumstances" hit him. Because
of his need to repay student loans, he searched for some work
on the side. A friend told him that MGM Studios was looking
for a medical consultant for a television show it was planning
to run, "Dr. Kildare." Dr. Smith applied for the
job and got it.
"It was a lot of fun," says Dr. Smith, who then
spent his time advising actors how to behave like doctors
and nurses and other medical personnel. He also reviewed the
set and scripts and ensured that terminology was correct.
"I got to meet a lot of very interesting people and see
the film industry close up. I also got to play a lot of gin
rummy with the work crews during all the down time!"
he laughs.
But he also won the respect of many in the entertainment
industry who saw in him that spirit of the country doctor,
always reachable, always with sound advice. He became the
physician for the Motion Picture Health and Welfare Group,
which led to many referrals. His practice grew and by 1955,
he helped establish the Beverly Hills Medical Clinic where
he spent "many busy but rewarding years" as a family
doctor. He retired in 1991.
In addition to his work in private practice, Dr. Smith also
devoted many years of his life at two of Los Angeles'
most renowned hospitals: Good Samaritan and St. John's.
For many years, he served on the staff of St. John's
Hospital, becoming Chairman of the Board of Trustees in 1987.
Throughout this time, he also served as a volunteer teacher
at UCLA's emergency center, as an officer for the Los
Angeles Public Health Service, and as an examiner for the
Federal Aviation Administration, certifying pilots and airline
industry personnel. He served for two years in World War II
as a member of the Admiral's staff in the Navy, having
been turned down by the Army due to injuries he had received
in a motorcycle accident.
Among his many professional honors, he is a Fellow of the
American College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Health of England, and a Diplomate of the American Board
of Internal Medicine. He is also a member of the California
Medical Association, the Los Angeles County Medical Association,
the Los Angeles Academy of Medicine, the American, California,
and Los Angeles Heart Associations, and the American Science
Film Association.
Step by step with Dr. Smith through all his accomplishments
has been his wife, Gerry. They celebrate their 60th wedding
anniversary next year. They met while on a double date, when
Bill took more of an interest in his friend's companion
than in his own. "He asked me out the next night,"
Gerry said, "and then he asked me out a lot. I was quite
smitten."
Raised in Los Angeles, Gerry attended Marymount and Marlborough
before studying at Westover, a girl's boarding school
in Connecticut. At 19, she spent a summer touring Europe with
a group of friends just before the War broke out.
Gerry returned to Los Angeles to work briefly in a law office
and volunteered with the Junior League. Soon after she and
Bill met, they were engaged and later married at St. Paul
the Apostle in Westwood. Bill was a Lutheran at the time.
He converted to Catholicism ten years later when one of his
daughters was preparing for her First Communion. Bill and
Gerry raised six children. They have nine grandchildren. Gerry
helps with their car-pooling and says she and Bill are grateful
to be able to spend so much time with them.
Bill and Gerry are avid gardeners, travelers and book readers.
Bill used to hunt game and still loves to fly-fish when he
can. Nearly every day, he and Gerry work out in their pool,
and lately, Bill has taken up watercolor painting with enthusiasm.
And until his retirement, he still made house calls. You can
take the doctor out of the country, but you can't take
the country out of this doctor.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2000
Interview with Dr. Smith:
 Q.
You were the personal physician to many illustrious persons
over the years. Who were some of the most memorable?
Jimmy Stewart, I was very close with. He was an absolutely
wonderful human being. Fred Astaire, too. In his later years,
all that dancing he had done had given him a lack of equilibrium.
He had to be helped around by his friends. It was very sad
to see, but he bore it with great grace and dignity. Walter
Pidgeon was another great gentleman. And Ava Gardner, whom
I had known from her very beginning until her death, she was
a marvelous woman. Others, too, like Y. Frank Freeman, the
head of Paramount for many years, and Sam Goldwyn, too, are
quite memorable. Howard Hughes was an enigma for my wife.
She could never understand why he needed help only at 3:00
a.m.
Also, some members of Saudi Arabia's ruling families
had become loyal patients of mine. They would fly all the
way over for appointments and then, according to their custom,
leave me with a watch or a clock after their visits. I had
more watches and clocks than I knew what to do with! I also
attended to the Shah of Iran, his sister, and their mother,
the Queen, over a period of time.
The first call I ever made on the Queen, I had no idea what
I was getting into. It was during the uprising in the 1970s,
and I went up to see her at her place near Beverly Hills.
When I got there, there were demonstrators throwing fire torches
at the house. I finally got past the line and in to see her.
She used to keep 12 poodles who were all dyed a different
color. A man would blow a whistle and they'd all fall
into line.
Q. Medical practice has changed quite a bit since your
grandfather's days. How have you come to see that change
over the years?
I was fortunate to be practicing during the "golden
years" of medicine. It was a great time to be a doctor.
We got to see amazing progress in the field of medicine, wonderful
advancements to help the human race. And we enjoyed the best
aspects of the physician-patient relationship, where a doctor
was considered a part of one's family, was looked up
to like a reverend or a pastor. You were always there when
they needed you. I enjoyed that greatly. Things started changing,
though, when managed care was introduced in the early 1990s.
Patients started getting bounced around from one doctor to
another and we lost something very valuable in that system.
But I'm optimistic that things will change back to the
way they were, that patients will get to have that sort of
intimacy with their physicians that they used to have.
Q. How did a medical man like you come to be interested
in a small classic liberal arts college?
I was fortunate enough to be on the board of several organizations,
and was chairman of the board of trustees at St. John's
Hospital when one day, Gerry said to me, "Bill, you're
raising all this money for the hospital, but I just found
out about this wonderful school and maybe you can do something
for it." Gerry had been a good friend of Margaret Browne
who was an early and generous benefactor of Thomas Aquinas
College and was serving on its board of governors. [Mrs. Browne
has since died in 1990, but her son, Dr. Harry Browne, has
since taken her place on the board. – ed.]
So one day, Gerry and I went up to the College and attended
one of [President] Tom Dillon's classes. We toured around.
I was deeply impressed. I could see that these young people
were actually being taught to think. They could form their
own ideas and opinions. I had never seen a school like that.
I had gone to Stanford and I had been associated with other
colleges, but I had never seen any other college do with its
students what Thomas Aquinas College was doing. Gerry and
I went home after that visit and I wrote what was for me a
good-size check for the College. After that, I was asked to
join the board, which I gratefully agreed to do.
Q. Unlike the average pre-med student, our graduates have
to complete an extra year of pre-med courses before they can
be admitted to medical school. Do you think it's worth
it for a student interested in medicine to still come here?
I certainly do. Pre-med training is a wonderful thing and
you can't get enough of it. But getting an education
in the classics enhances one's whole life. To add a year
of schooling so that you can have this experience is, really,
a small price to pay.
Q. Would you recommend the practice of medicine to young
people today?
Certainly. In spite of all the changes that have been occurring,
it still is most satisfying. Helping people with diseases
and suffering is one of the noblest pursuits in life. I don't
think there's any profession that can compare.
Q. What about the sheer time demands for the practitioner
today? Can someone do that and still have a family?
Yes, but I must say that you have to have an understanding
wife. It takes a great deal of time that others would be spending
at home.
Q. How has your faith affected your medical practice over
the years?
That's a hard question to answer. My faith was certainly
unchanged, although I certainly feel closer to God now than
I did in my younger days. You just learn to do things according
to your faith when you are a doctor. Of course, that cuts
out doing a number of things, like abortion, and artificial
birth control, but most of my career I was practicing in Catholic
hospitals where that wasn't an issue. I really value
having been in that circumstance. I never really encountered
situations where my faith put me in conflict with my work,
although I can certainly see how other doctors might be put
in those situations today.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2000
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