Joseph Clarence Woo Jr. MD, FACP, FACC, FCCP and His Wife Mabel Have Been
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Joseph Clarence Woo Jr. MD, FACP, FACC, FCCP and his wife Mabel have been the gracious donors of several major gifts and untold hours of dedicated time and commitment to the overall development of Community Medical Centers’ hospitals and facilities. Life is circuitous. The circle of life and death, the circles of friendship and mutual commitment, relationships that span decades and generations. Even the circuitous path blood travels as it passes through the right and left ventricles of the heart. Life-giving, life-affirming circles. This is the story of a lifetime of relationships, a vast, connected series of circles. 1900 was a simpler time. In California, it was a time of gold rush bust, railroad boom and agricultural prosperity. In Fresno, it was a time of street cars and Piggly Wigglys. It was a time when Fresno’s largest health care provider was a boarding house-turned-hospital. Celia Burnett, proprietor of that successful Fresno boarding house, had been approached by several physicians about turning her boarding house into a private hospital. She agreed and the Burnett Sanitarium, at the southeast corner of Fulton and Calaveras streets, served the community of Fresno from 1897 to 1905. The Fresno Morning Republican newspaper reported that the mission of the hospital was “to provide a place where persons suffering from disease can be treated while under the care of physicians.” It was a simple objective for a simple time. Specialty care was limited, doctors still made house calls, and most babies were born at home. The use of X-rays was still being explored. Penicillin was unheard of, as was CPR. In fact, most doctors thought the heart was a delicate organ, too delicate to interfere with. In short, 1900 was a century poised on the brink of medical discoveries, large and small. In Fresno, life went on, and the population grew steadily. Patient numbers grew also, and in 1905 the Burnett Sanitarium moved from the modest boarding house to a three-story building on the northeast corner of Fresno and S streets, built at a cost of $12,500. Back then, a weeklong hospital stay could cost a patient between $15 and $25, still expensive when you considered the average American wage in 1905 was between $438 and $574 a year. In 1916, the hospital prepared for another expansion. This time, plans were drawn for a five- story structure facing S Street. Built at a cost of $150,000, this facility, known as the Burnett Annex, would add two minor and two major surgeries, administrative offices and additional beds to the hospital. For the next 29 years, the Burnett Sanitarium and Annex would continue to serve Fresno and its surrounding communities. It was one of the most modern hospitals on the West Coast. Long-time Fresnans associated with Community Medical Centers separate the phases of the hospital by the height of its structures. First there was the Burnett Sanitarium, then the Burnett Annex, then the Five-Story, and then there was the Ten-Story. And sometimes family growth spanned hospital growth. Such was the case with the Joseph Woo family. 1 It’s 1908. Eight-year old Lillian Lee and her family are brought by her father to California from Canton, China, entering the state through Angel Island Immigration Station, the lesser-known West Coast version of Ellis Island. The family settles in Fresno among the large Chinese population in Chinatown. Lillian worked at the Lyceum Theatre on F Street and attended Fresno Technical High where she would be the first Chinese woman in Fresno to receive a high school diploma. Joseph C. Woo, Sr. had been born to first generation immigrant parents in Sparks, Nevada in 1898. His father came from China in 1872 to work on the Central Pacific Railroad. They moved to Fresno in 1921. Joseph Sr. worked as a salesman at the China Toggery on Fulton and Tulare streets. Lillian and Joseph noticed each other at a dance but cultural custom prevented them from meeting; they had to find someone else to introduce them first. Apparently the introductions went well because Joseph and Lillian were married the next year in 1922. Their first child, a daughter, Geraldine was born in 1923; the following year Joseph Jr. was born, delivered by Fresno doctor William Stein, one of the early physicians and stockholders of the Burnett Sanitarium. Woo was born in the Sanitarium and had his tonsils taken out in the Annex. His relationship with Community Hospital began early. Joseph Jr. grew up in that simpler time of the early 1900s. The streetcar barn was nearby on First and Tulare streets, and if the streetcars weren’t running, bicycles were quick and easy transport to unexplored parts of the city. He delivered newspapers for the Fresno Bee and reveled in the fact that as a newspaper carrier he could get into movies for free on Saturdays. Hot summer days were spent swimming in the irrigation ditch at Millbrook and McKinley. He attended Jackson School and then Roosevelt High School. Along the way, his interest in biology and medicine grew. “I was interested in little animals, butterflies. I’d dissect frogs to see what was in them. My mom wasn’t too happy about that but she never discouraged me,” he said. In fact, his parents were always supportive of both him and Geraldine. “My sister and I rarely had to ask for anything we needed, but we never wanted anything extravagant,” he said. Joseph Jr. had outside support as well. Dr. William Stein, the doctor who had delivered him, noticed his interest in medicine and kept track of his progress. It would be a relationship that spanned a lifetime. By now, the Woo family had bought a home at 8th and Nevada, the first Chinese family to live in that area. Joseph Sr. opened Woo’s Café in the Warnor’s Theatre building on Fulton Street. At the time, it was the largest restaurant in Fresno. Joseph Jr. worked in the restaurant after school, often waiting on Dr. Stein, a frequent patron of the Café. “Are you going to med school? Have you applied yet?” he would ask the young Joseph, discussing the merits of medical schools and offering advice. It was during this same time physician John D. Morgan would come to practice in family practice and surgery at the Burnett Sanitarium. In 1937, Dr. Morgan became chairman of the 2 board of the hospital. For the next ten years, he would guide the hospital through its transformation from the private Burnett Sanitarium to Fresno Community Hospital, a nonprofit general medical and surgical hospital. In the years prior to 1945, the San Joaquin Valley was pretty much a medical frontier. The pattern of diseases was seasonal: winter would usher in respiratory diseases consisting of pneumonia, thoracic emphysema, respiratory infections of all kinds and acute mastoid (ear infection) cases. As far as contagious diseases went, diphtheria, typhoid, scarlet fever, rubeola, rubella, pertussis and smallpox were all prevalent. Most diseases had no specific effective medications, only support treatment. Summer and early fall would see a great influx of patients with polio. In fact, Fresno County Hospital would actually gain a statewide reputation as a polio center. The iron lung was in common use for patients with polio which affected the muscles of respiration. Despite grim odds for patients, those years would see some of the most far-reaching medical advancements to date: the advent of antimicrobial agents such as sulfonamide and penicillin, early studies and experiments with heart surgery, advances in anesthesia, and the early testing of vaccines against polio, measles and rubella. Meanwhile, life continued in the Woo household. The young Joseph graduated from Roosevelt in 1942 and enrolled at Fresno State College. He was recruited to run track by J. Flint Hanner, the award-winning track coach who started the West Coast Relays. With no track experience, Woo ran the 300-yard dash against the Hammer Field Air Force Team. He won the race in 36 seconds and subsequently became a member of the team which would win the college-division Mile Relay in the 1943 West Coast Relays. He would be the first Chinese to letter in track at the college. Majoring in pre-med, Woo took the usual litany of classes. Even though chemistry was a tough course for him, it played a big part in his curriculum, both academically and personally. Each year, the department held a competition with the top three chemistry students, in front of the whole department, answering rapid-fire chemistry questions. The last man standing was the winner. And it was always men in those days, until, one year there was a woman among the three. Woo thought, “I’ve got to meet that gal.” Mabel Lowe was her name and she would become his wife, the mother of their three children, and a valuable employee. Woo graduated from Fresno State College in 1944 and went away to med school at George Washington University in Washington D.C. working as a lab technician to help cover his room and board. “I didn’t have to,” he said, “but I wanted to contribute something so my parents wouldn’t have to spend so much.” Looking back, he admits he would have gotten better grades if he had not worked, but it was a matter of honor for him to help his family. While Woo was studying on the east coast, Mabel headed north and received her BS in chemistry at UC Berkeley in 1946. Once a year, Woo would take the train from D.C.