Dorothy Waddell

(1936-2002)

Dorothy was born in 1936 in Denver, the daughter of a physician and his wife, a former nurse. She was early exposed to tragedy when her little brother Paul developed a brain cyst. She watched the little boy growing up always falling, always being in trouble, always being teased by the other children and later sent to a heartless institution. Another formative event was spending a summer representing the US Girl scouts in Switzerland. Coming from the raw American West, she experienced life in cities centuries old, she also learned the joy of eating vegetables when they are not overcooked. She "knew" Oberlin College was right for her without ever going out to visit the school, and she often talked about her happy years and good friends in college. Dorothy was planning to become a nurse like her mother, but then realized she could be a doctor, and decided to go for it, despite some family resistance.

After four years at Western Reserve Medical School, she served her internship and residency at Stanford. It was then that she met her husband-to-be on a Sierra Club outing, Ole Thogersen, an electrical engineer from Denmark, who was spending "a year" in California. The two discovered that they had much in common and they married in June of 1967. Ole spent the “honeymoon" on assignment in Utah, and Dorothy went back to work at Stanford. Two months later, however, they headed for New York City where they loaded their car on board SS Bergensfjord for a ten-month tour of Europe.

Back in Colorado Dorothy soon found work in a neighborhood clinic for indigent people, but Ole had to look all the way to Oakland to find a job. She followed her husband and found work at the San Francisco General Hospital outpatient clinic. She always felt most comfortable in a setting where money did not get between her and her patients.

In the seventies and eighties she founded and directed the Alternative Therapies Unit at SFGH where she was a pioneer in the use of biofeedback, hypnosis and massage along with conventional medicine for patients who did not respond well to regular treatment. When funding for the ATU was no longer available, she started a private practice in San Francisco, where she treated patients suffering from chronic pain and stress related disorders. Her passions included hiking and camping in the mountains, and music. She was an accomplished pianist and organist, and also enjoyed jazz, folk and even rock. These passions complemented her deep concern for the environment and the fate of those less fortunate than herself.

She died suddenly and quite unexpectedly while on vacation in Denver. Her ashes were scattered in the Rocky Mountains.

Ole Thogersen