SMCMA 2005

Distinguished Service Award:

Eldon E. Ellis, M.D.

         Eldon E. Ellis, M.D.

Born to a family of ministers and teachers that moved from Indiana to Illinois and back again numerous times during his youth, Eldon E. Ellis, M.D., never lost his conviction that medicine was his calling and not just medicine but surgery.

Graduating from high school as the country entered WWII, Dr. Ellis joined the Navy and was assigned to an officers’ training program, which provided for his education. He earned his BA at the University of Rochester, NY, and continued on to the University of Rochester School of Medicine, finishing in 1949 with a specialty in general and thoracic surgery. He interned at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Still in the Naval Reserve, Dr. Ellis was called back to active duty in 1950 and began his residency at hospitals in Germany and Rhode Island before returning to Stanford, 1952-54. He was chief resident in surgery at San Mateo Community Hospital 1954-55.

By then Dr. Ellis was ready to begin his clinical practice and joined the Redwood Medical Clinic, an early venture in multispecialty clinics. As a member of the Sequoia Hospital staff, he performed the first aortic graft at Sequoia in 1956. It was facilitated through the artery bank operated by the California Heart Association. Dr. Ellis spent 30 rewarding, and sometimes frustrating, years as a full partner in the Clinic. He was director from 1984 to 1987, when he ended his surgical career. He was 65 years old. "I felt fine, but I had seen others hang on too long, and I didn’t want that to happen to me," he said. He also ended his partnership in the Clinic at that time. He continued to practice industrial and occupational medicine there and then moved on to Peninsula Industrial Medical Clinic in San Carlos from 1991 to 1999, where he was medical director 1990 to 1993. He still practices occupational and industrial medicine at Sequoia Occupational Health in Palo Alto one day a week.

Outside of his personal practice, Dr. Ellis devoted many hours to advancing the profession. He was president of the Sequoia Hospital medical staff from 1970 to 1972 and was elected to the Board of Directors of the Sequoia Hospital District, serving from 1974 to 1982 and as president in 1980. He helped found the Sequoia Hospital Foundation and served from 1984 to 1992 and as president from 1984 to 1989. He was elected Redwood City Citizen of the Year in 1986.

In the days of Regional Medical Programs, which were formed across the nation to focus the medical community on correcting shortfalls in heart and cancer care and resulted in the establishment of coronary care units, Dr. Ellis served with leaders from various aspects of the health community. He also worked with the Heart Association at the county, state, and national levels. He was president of the California Heart Association in 1965-66 and served two terms as president of the San Mateo County Heart Association in 1961-63 and 1984-85. The American Heart Association awarded him the Gold Heart Award in 1979 for his contributions to the Association’s national program and to cardiovascular care.

The teaching-training hospital ship S.S. Hope caught his imagination as a worthy project, and Dr. Ellis went on three trips of two months each as chief of surgery: Peru, 1962; Ecuador, 1964; and West Africa, 1965. He gave instruction in surgical techniques to doctors from the different countries and performed operations on the ship and in the countries. He describes the experience as "fantastic" and is on the Board of Directors of the Project Hope Alumni Association, serving as its president 1992-94.

Dr. Ellis is still active in the San Mateo County Medical Association as chair of the Bioethics Committee. He was president of SMCMA in 1969-70 and has been a member of and chaired various SMCMA and CMA committees over the years.

He believes that the Medical Association should be the voice to and for the membership, bringing information from CMA and AMA and other agencies to the membership and speaking with one voice for the membership to the community. The Association needs also to pass along the concerns and questions voiced by citizens of the surrounding communities and to anticipate the needs of its publics and act rather than just react to situations that arise. "I see Association work as a facet of the business of medicine. As a community of physicians, we can do much more than we can as individuals working alone," he said.

In 1989 Dr. Ellis named three major challenges medicine would face from outside forces in the next decade: 1. an aging population; 2. an explosion of technological advances and their inherent costs; and 3. the shrinking dollars the populace (and government) is willing to commit to health care. He said he sees these forces as causing reduced access to care and bringing on the potential for rationing of health care.

Of being a doctor, Dr. Ellis says, "I can’t remember a day when I didn’t enjoy going to work. There is an excitement about being involved in helping people and doing something I liked and getting paid for it." Asked what he might have changed in his life given the chance, he quipped, "adding another 10 years of surgery."

Stepping away from medicine, Dr. Ellis was a pilot and co-owner of several airplanes, the last one being a Cessna 310 twin-engine, six-passenger, cross-country plane, which he flew to various locations including Alaska, the Yucatan Peninsula, and New Brunswick, Canada. He stopped piloting in 2000 at the age of 78.

As a creative outlet, Dr. Ellis has performed with the Masterworks Chorale in San Mateo for 13 years and has traveled with the group on European concert tours.

Dr. Ellis considers his administrative accomplishments with the Sequoia District Board and the Sequoia Hospital Foundation, at his clinics, and with SMCMA as major highlights of his career. And, he adds, I have been blessed with three marvelous wives (he lost his first two wives to cancer). "They were all different but shared one characteristic in common: they gave of themselves to others. I consider them among the greatest blessings of my life." He married Ginny in 1992 and they recently celebrated their thirteenth anniversary. They are active in the Peninsula Covenant Church in Redwood City. Dr. Ellis has six children.