Theo Williams, MD
Profile in compassion...
Inspiration and Dedication
Volunteering since 1992
Dr. Williams has been a regular volunteer at the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington (FCSW) almost since its inception. He had only been in the Vancouver area for two years, working at Kaiser Permanente, when Marcia Howery came to him as a patient and recruited him to the clinic in 1992. When asked what inspires his dedication to providing healthcare to the underserved, he references his own impoverished childhood.
Dr. Williams was born in Phoenix, Arizona, to a mother and father that he describes as poor and dysfunctional. His mother battled schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, while his father struggled with alcoholism. While he was in foster homes as a young child, he was mostly raised by his older sister in Yakima, Washington. He remembers that his family doctor refused to continue to provide care for his family members because they were on welfare and couldn’t pay. Despite a difficult family life, Dr. Williams excelled in school and sports, especially wrestling. His inspiration to become a physician stems from his love of comic book doctors such as Doc Savage, Thor the Thunder God, and the Incredible Hulk. While many people may consider his academic success improbable given his family circumstances, as a child and young adult he wasn’t aware that the odds were stacked against him. He was blessed, he says, that no teacher or adult ever told him he couldn’t succeed.
to make myself better and better,
to the best of my ability,
that all may profit by it.
Let me think of the right
and lend all my assistance
to those who need it,
with no regard for anything but justice.
Let me take what comes with a smile,
without loss of courage.
Let me be considerate of my country,
of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do.
Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.”
The Oath of Doc Savage, written by Lester Dent
And succeed he has, by anyone’s measure. Upon graduating from high school, he attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. There, he met the love of his life, his wife Diana (during our phone interview, Diana could be heard laughing at her husband in the background). Following college, he went to medical school at Howard University in Washington, DC, where he obtained his degree in 1983. After a year of surgical training at Howard, he did his family practice residency in San Jose, and worked in New Mexico before moving back to Yakima to work on the Yakima Reservation. He notes with a chuckle that while he “looks Black, appearances can be deceiving,” and he is part Native American. This heritage motivated him to work on the reservation, and he found working with the reservation’s underserved residents rewarding. When he moved to Vancouver and began working for Kaiser Permanente, volunteering at the Free Clinic helped him continue to engage his keen interest in working with those in need.
When I met Dr. Williams, it was under amusing but illustrative circumstances. A young male patient asked about a dessert that had been brought in by volunteers. (Thank you, Marva!) He was initially informed that the food was for volunteers, but Dr. Williams decided to make an exception. At the time, he said “What if that boy could be a chef someday, and he was going to be inspired by that taste of pie!” Having made the decision, he took a portion of the desert out to the patient in the lobby. Later, he told me that, “I could see myself in that boy.” “He was hungry, and he really wanted a piece of that pie.” Being able to identify with our patients is one of the reasons that Dr. Williams enjoys volunteering. He says there is nothing more rewarding than the “Thank you!” that he gets from his FCSW patients—it “clears his mind and soul.”
September 2008
