Tag: kathleen

  • About

    About

    Kathleen Campbell

    Dick and I met at San Francisco General, when I, a new secretary, arrived to share an office with his secretary. She and I both had Master’s degrees in Creative Writing. Typically overqualified secretaries. Dick broke his own rule about not dating anyone from the hospital when one afternoon he offered me a ride home on his motorcycle.

    We went on to marry, have twins and he mortgaged his house to put me through law school.

    Dick was my sounding board, and saved me many times from doing or saying stupid things. He was my consolation. He met me at the front door when I arrived home late at night from class or the Library or working late at the federal Court.

    Thanks to Dick, my own view of local, state and national politics was definitely focused by how they affected the hospital. Dick was one of a limited number of physicians who in addition to taking care of patients, also understood finance and politics. He was also a wonderful teacher. To have all his gifts is rare.

    As Dick himself said: I can teach, administer and heal.

    That is what I mean to show in this website, how Dick could teach, administer and heal and also be a husband, father, son, brother and friend.

  • Moving to San Francisco

    Dick knew even before he finished medical school that he would leave the East Coast for California.

    “It wasn’t from TV. I just knew about the Free Speech movement and the anti-war movement and civil rights and I knew I had to be there. I applied to San Francisco General’s internship program. My interviewer was this gray-haired woman pediatrician. She said she didn’t have time to interview me, because there was this demonstration in Berkeley she wanted to go to. So I said, ‘Let’s go.’ It was Mario Savio speaking in Sproul Plaza. After that, I knew I had to go there. It was the only program I applied to. I was in Peru when the acceptance letter came. I had told my mother where I was, but poor Sylvia had no way to reach me.”

    In 1974, Dick met Kathleen Campbell, a secretary in the Outpatient Department. They lived together for seven years, married in 1981, and had twin daughters, Sarah and Lynn, in 1983. Dick supported Kathleen in obtaining her law degree and becoming a federal court attorney in 1986.

    They lived in the same house that Fine had purchased in 1968, while he was still a resident. For many years they rode the same motorcycle 1974 BMW R/75 on which he had given her a ride from the hospital to her flat in the Mission on that fateful day he broke his rule about not dating anyone from work.