Dr. Ken Woerthwein's Medical Education and Practice

Dr. Woerthwein

When he was about 13 years old, his family began to ask Ken what he wanted to become; he had “no idea”.  But as he watched the 1950s documentary TV series “The Twentieth Century” (narrated by Walter Cronkite) and learned about “new and inventive” medical breakthroughs, he began to think about becoming a doctor.  

When he was a high school junior, Ken read “Arrowsmith” (as he recalls) published in 1925 by Sinclair Lewis; a story about the challenges faced by an idealistic physician-scientist.  From these two experiences, Ken then knew he wanted to be a doctor to serve others.

[A Wikipedia entry notes that the fictional Martin Arrowsmith of a hundred years ago was a bright young boy in a small mid-western town.  After spending time with a local general practitioner, he became aware of the “societal forces of ignorance, greed, and corruption that were as life-threatening as the plague.”]

[As an interesting aside, Sinclair Lewis famously said that “when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag carrying the cross.”]

After High School

From the suburbs of Chicago, Ken went to Princeton University in New Jersey.  While applying to colleges, he was naive about Eastern schools and asked others if such schools offered a good college education.  Ken told me that the elite Ivy League college was actively recruiting students from public schools to complement its traditional prep school applicants.  He was interviewed locally, was accepted, and went there “sight unseen”.

Beautiful Princeton Campus (Credit: depositphotos.com)

At Princeton, Ken majored in biochemistry.  He always loved sports and went out for the football team, but decided “it was too rough” at the college level.  He was well prepared academically by his high school education and did well in his freshman year.  In his sophomore year, he stumbled (like many premeds do) in organic chemistry.  He passed but did not do well in the course.  Ken moved on, enjoyed college and thrived in the other sciences and liberal arts courses. He did research and wrote his senior thesis on the regeneration of limbs in newts.

Introduction to Quakerism

Ken dated his late-wife, Wicky (Francine Willmore), in high school.  Wicky went to Beaver College (now Arcadia University) just north of Philadelphia.  Wicky was invited to attend a Quaker Meeting (The Religious Society of Friends) where she felt immediately at home with the form of worship, basic principles, and testimonies for daily living.  She introduced Ken to Quakerism, which slowly resonated with him.  They were married in a Friends ceremony at the Princeton Stony Brook Meeting House in November 1963, a week after President Kennedy’s assassination.

Stony Brook Meeting House (Credit: Princeton Friends Meeting)

[My experience, as a child, of sitting quietly on a hard wooden bench at the Frankford Friends School in Philadelphia during an hour-long worship Meeting left a lasting impression, as noted in my previous post.] 

After Princeton, back to Chicago

Ken was looking forward to going to medical school after graduating from Princeton in 1964, but he didn’t receive an acceptance letter, which he thought was due to his poor grade in organic chemistry.  A rabbi his wife knew thought Ken did not receive an acceptance letter because his last name may be Jewish.  (At that time, there was an unspoken quota of accepting Jews into medical schools.)  

When another opportunity opened, Ken returned to Chicago where he attended the University of Illinois in Chicago and studied for a Master’s degree in anatomy under Dr. Anthony Schmidt who also did research on the regeneration of limbs in newts.  (Ken’s Master’s degree included this research.)

Ken reapplied to medical school and was accepted in 1966 at the University of Illinois School of Medicine in Chicago.  Ken greatly enjoyed medical school where he rotated through three major hospitals in the area during his four years as a medical student.  One hospital was the Research and Education hospital of the medical school, another was the West Side VA and the third was Cook County Hospital, a government-run (free) hospital serving the poor (and mostly Black) community in the county.  Cook County Hospital is now called the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County.

Cook County Hospital reborn as Hyatt House Chicago/University 
(adjacent to Stroger) (Credit: SOM)

It was at the Cook County Hospital that Ken had intense and formative exposure to low-income individuals. He was struck by the racial and class differences in health care, including patients placed in beds in large wards with little to no privacy.  As a student at this hospital, all the doctors, including him, were very busy, not only taking care of many patients but also doing lab work that could be performed on the patient's floor. (It is said that Cook County Hospital was the inspiration for the TV show “E.R.”)

Lead Poisoning

During his pediatric rotation at the pediatric building of the Cook County complex, he helped care for a young child who suffered brain damage from lead poisoning after eating chips of crumbling lead-based paint found in slum housing.  Ken and a fellow colleague (a Black student) encouraged the parents to go to the liberal newspaper, the “Chicago Sun-Times,” to tell their story.  They eventually did, and some initial efforts were then made to address the risks of lead poisoning in the inner city.  (It wasn’t until 1978 that use of lead-based paint was finally banned in the US. There is no safe level of exposure to this intense neurotoxin.)

There are many potential sources of lead poisoning

[In the 1960s, lead in paint was not the only source of the dangerous metal; the war in Vietnam, with millions of lead bullets fired from Soviet AK-47s and American M-16s, weighed heavily on our society, especially young men.  (We will get back to this later.)]

Project House and the AFSC                                           

Ken became a member of the Friends Meeting in Princeton in 1965 while living in Chicago.  Wicky was a social justice activist. She was invited to become the Young Adult representative to the board of the American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) regional office in Chicago. 

The AFSC owned a house in East Garfield Park called Project House from which many community programs were initiated. People from the community were the employed leadership.  (As Ken recalls, the first Tenants Rights Union was founded out of Project House.)

Project House in the 1960s (now an abandoned empty lot)
 (Credit: Jim Ralph)

Ken and Wicky took part in the AFSC’s PREP (preadolescent enrichment program) program out of Project House. After an assault of a Quaker by a member of the Southside Black Stone Rangers street gang, PREP was conceived as a way to break down racial barriers in the city by having white and Black families get to know one another through an experiential enrichment activities program for their young children.  On many weekends, the Woerthweins took mostly low-income, white and Black, elementary schoolgirls to a variety of new places and activities throughout the city.  

Ken recalled that a white girl from rural Kentucky lived with her family in a condemned building near Wrigley Field.  She was the poorest child in the group. This was eye-opening for everyone, including the rest of the children in the group.  The young girl had inadequate outerwear for the winters in Chicago; this needed protection was soon obtained for her.

The War on Poverty and the Chicago Riots 

During the summer before his junior year in medical school, Ken took part in the Student Summer Health Project (SSHP) funded by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s massive “War on Poverty” (that also created Medicare and Medicaid). 

Ken interacted with a Black teenage youth group in East Garfield Park who asked him to talk about sex education including anatomy, sexually-transmitted diseases, and contraceptive methods available at that time.  Through the SSHP, Ken became more informed about poverty, racism, and poor healthcare which led to the terrible living conditions in the Black ghettos in Chicago.

During the 1968 riots in Chicago, one of their PREP families was burned out of their apartment in East Garfield Park. The Woerthweins collected donated clothing and brought it to the family who had moved in with their grandmother in the North Lawndale section of Chicago (another poor Black neighborhood that had also suffered extensive burned-out residences and businesses during the riots).

Fires burning in the West Side of Chicago 1968 (Credit: Chicago Sun-Times)

[The urban riots are now referred to as "uprisings" by a York historian.]

These early experiences of social inequality and the effects of longstanding racism in the turbulent 1960s had lasting impacts on the young doctor-in-training. (Recall the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the important Voting Rights Act of 1965.)

After Medical School

After four years of medical school, Ken was intrigued by the scientific basis of Internal Medicine and needed to find a residency. One of the students who graduated ahead of him from medical school (a friendly and jovial guy) went to York Hospital for training and touted its many values. Ken visited in September 1969, shortly after a second series of summer riots triggered by racial turmoil in the ongoing wake of the April 4, 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (the day after his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop" speech in Memphis).

Ken’s visit was extended for a few days when Wicky needed medical care.  As Ken met several York physicians (including Dr. Dave Jones), he was struck by the atmosphere of collegiality at the large comprehensive hospital. Impressed by what he experienced, Ken applied to the program, was accepted, and started his internship in July 1970.  Following that busy year, he began his formal residency, but he was emotionally exhausted by the many years of education he had completed and left the program early.  Ken knew he would be drafted.

[The first of two random draft lotteries for the Vietnam War was held in December 1969.  Men attending college were still exempt until 1971, but those studying medicine kept their protected status.]                                           

(As a junior in high school, Ken read the anti-war novel “All Quiet on the Western Front.”  It affected him deeply; he decided then that he did not want anything to do with war of any kind.)

While doing a rotation at the West Side VA Hospital, he helped care for a wounded Vietnam soldier who developed an infected, deep open wound, extending down to the bone of his lower leg. The soldier said that because his infection was so grotesque, his wife wanted nothing to do with him, and all he wanted as treatment was an amputation.  This experience further convinced Ken that he was not going to serve as a doctor in Vietnam if it meant caring for soldiers so that they could return to war.

West Side VA Hospital (Now the Jesse Brown Medical Center)
(Credit: Dept. of Veteran Affairs)

Since he was no longer in training, Dr. Woerthwein notified his local draft board of his eligibility and the decision he made, as a Quaker and a pacifist, that he wished to be considered a Conscientious Objector to war.  The board assigned him to two years of alternative service.  

As a physician, he could provide healthcare to an underserved population.  Where would he be assigned?

In the aftermath of the riots in York, to address the causes and other concerns, there was a week-long open community forum or public workshop called a Charrette.  According to a newspaper story years later, “The York Charrette explored the unleashed use of police dogs, lack of affordable and suitable housing, health care for the poor, and public transportation, among other community issues.”

One result of the Charrette was that in July 1970 the WE Group of the health committee (members from the community and health providers from various organizations) founded and incorporated the Community Health Center. It was staffed by volunteer healthcare and community providers.

Alternative Service

Since downtown York City was identified as a medically underserved area and was a “displacement” from Ken’s home environment in Chicago, the draft board felt it was a suitable option for Ken’s alternative service.  During this time, Ken discussed with Dr. Dave Jones at York Hospital his decision and desire. And in late July 1971 (through grant funding), he became the first full-time physician at the (free) Community Health Center (CHC) in York City.  

Dr. Piper

The initial medical facility was situated in the back of the VNA building at 218 East Market Street.  The York CHC was one of the first of the free health clinics in the US.  Some of the volunteer physicians were Drs. Pete Piper (1927-2013), Gary Ardison, John Trimmer, and many others, including interested York Hospital Residents.

As the CHC grew, it moved to 116 N. George St., a much larger facility remodeled in part by the staff and patients.  There were unmet healthcare needs for the poor beyond the city limits, as well.  With the help of the Community Progress Council, other make-shift offices were opened in rural Felton, Red Lion, and Dillsburg, and later on in Hanover and Lewisberry.  Ken saw patients at all of these centers. 

During one summer, Dr. Woerthwein saw patients at the Migrant Health Clinic run by the State Health Department. It was set up in the basement of Gettysburg Hospital. The patients were seasonal migrants who worked the vast apple orchards in Adams County. While there, they lived in poor housing.

Dr. Woerthwein greatly enjoyed the work at the various health centers and the people he worked with. He stayed on for an additional year beyond the two that satisfied his Selective Service requirement.

Switch to Family Medicine and Serving the Poor

While at the CHC, Dr. Piper saw that Ken’s nature was more attuned to family medicine than hospital-based internal medicine.  He urged him to do a family practice residency.  Dr. Woerthwein agreed.  He applied to and was accepted into the Family Practice residency program at York Hospital.  Through this residency, he broadened his medical education experience by being exposed to and caring for many patients with complex and common medical problems. 

During his residency, he was allowed to continue to care for his office patients at the CHC.  He said he owes a special debt of gratitude to general internist Dr. Jack Kline who guided him carefully and gave him appropriate responsibilities as he helped care for Dr. Kline’s patients in the hospital. 

Dr. Mulligan

After Ken finished his Family Practice residency in 1976, he returned to the Community Health Center where his future partner, Jim Mulligan (1944-2017) was now practicing.  (Jim completed his internship at York Hospital in 1970, followed by his Indian Health Service at an Indian Reservation in Washington, and then did a Family Practice residency in Rockford, Illinois.)  

About this time, the CHC needed additional funding sources.  The Board of the CHC sought federal funds to become a Federally Qualified Health Center.  As such, they were required to use National Health Service doctors from then on. The Community Health Center became today’s Family First Health.

Ken and Jim wanted to continue to serve low-income patients in York City so they rented an office on West Market Street for one or two years. They then purchased and remodeled a building at 462 W. Market Street, a former car dealership.  While at the CHC and at their office, they supplemented their income by serving as doctors at the old York County Prison (another eye-opening experience), the old Pleasant Acres Nursing Home, and for several years in the York Hospital inpatient alcohol and detox unit.  (Ken noted Dr. Dave Jones was a “silent partner” during this time to help find sites where they could earn additional income.)

[Dr. Woerthwein admitted openly to me that he was initially “prejudiced” against people with addictions, believing that addiction was a moral issue.  His time caring for such patients made him realize that addiction is a complex medical problem and not a question of moral weakness.]

Dr. McMillan

By the 1980s, Drs. Woerthwein and Mulligan decided that their practice should seek out employees “who reflected and looked like the patients they were serving.” They needed a diverse staff.  They hired additional front office staff and a nurse assistant. They later recruited Dr. Deborah McMillan (a York native working in North Carolina at the time), and Roland Williams (a physician’s assistant who trained at Hershey Medical Center).

In addition to their office practice, they took care of their patients when they were hospitalized and made home visits where they got first-hand experience of their patients and their living conditions.

Although their practice grew, the income lagged.  They decided to partner with an HMO (prepaid health plans designed to control cost) which began to move into the York area in the early 1980s.  This provided guaranteed monthly income, although their decision was not looked upon favorably by many of the other practicing doctors in York.

Healthcare continued to change.  In 1994, as large regional health systems were becoming the prevailing model, Ken’s and Jim’s group was the second family practice bought by the newly-named, Wellspan Health System.  The office was moved to West Bannister Street in West York.  (Dr. Mulligan left the practice in 1998 to do addiction medicine) 

Retirement from Practice 

Dr. Woerthwein continued to work at the Bannister Street office until he retired from clinical practice in 2009. He very much enjoyed working with his diverse and caring staff.  (He was employed by Wellspan for another 15 years doing insurance appeals. This work allowed him to stay in contact with the changing field of medicine.)

The practice that he and Jim started is still manned by a diverse staff adhering to the ideals and goals of the founders.  Poverty and the effects of systemic racism remain the most critical of the “social determinants of health” and well-being that Dr. Woerthwein confronted daily.  Ken told me, frankly, that he doesn’t believe there has been significant improvement in these issues over the years.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) 2022:

The social determinants of health (SDoH) are the conditions under which people are born, grow, work, and age, and include factors such as socioeconomic status, education, employment, social support networks, and neighborhood characteristics. These social factors have a more significant collective impact on health and health outcomes than health behavior, health care, and the physical environment, SDoH, especially poverty, structural racism, and discrimination, are the primary drivers of health inequities (italics added).

Reflecting on the years he spent in medical education and his practice, Ken feels that so many things that happened to him were a matter of chance opportunities that occurred at just the right time.

(Ken and Wicky raised four children, three of whom were adopted. The children in the tri-racial family experienced personal and racial discrimination while growing up in the York area.  Wicky died in 2018.)

Reference and Suggested Readings:

1.  AAFP. "Poverty and Health-The Family Medicine Perspective" (Position Paper) AAFP, January 2022. (accessed at https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/poverty-health.html)

2. Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Bold Type Books, New York, 2016. ( Detailed, heavily-referenced, timely, and chilling essential reading.)

3. Smith, Robert Lawrence. A Quaker Book of Wisdom: Life Lessons in Simplicity, Service, and Common Sense. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1998.  (An enjoyable reflection on the core Quaker values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, and equality.  And that "there is that of Good in every man.")

Along the Old Field Trail at Richard Nixon Park and Nature Center (Photo by SC)

By Anita Cherry 1/30/25