Ex-Patients Help Salute a Doctor With Young Ideas

Gisela Longoria was born with a congenital blood vessel defect that frequently caused dangerous hemorrhaging in her right leg. Her parents rushed her to hospital emergency rooms over and over for blood transfusions and surgery.

The disease is incurable. Amputate the leg, a series of doctors urged. The girl will bleed to death one of these days, they warned.

But Dr. Morton Woolley adamantly refused. “She has a functional leg and if we keep working at it, we can save it,” Woolley insisted. Not giving up, he performed surgery 30 times to stop the bleeding and remove excess blood vessels from Longoria’s leg.

Now 28 and an accomplished equestrienne, a grown Longoria joined Saturday night at the Century Plaza with hundreds of physicians, nurses, friends and former patients to honor Woolley, who is retiring after 15 years as chief surgeon at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.

“How can words express the way I feel about a man who has meant so much to my life? He means life, he means hope, he means courage,” said Longoria, who last had surgery at the age of 15 and today plays polo and rides in amateur rodeos.

Woolley said he is leaving the hospital, where he has worked for 31 years, with a mixture of emotions: Joy at not being “on call” for virtually the first time in years, and sadness at leaving a position he loves.

Forced to retire because of hospital policy, Wooley, 66, said he would step down in the next few months as soon as a replacement is found.

Among the guests were Mark and Scott Keith, 30-year-old identical twins who owe their lives to Woolley. Born six weeks premature in January, 1960, the babies had a life-threatening congenital defect. In each, the esophagus, the tube linking the mouth to the stomach, was blocked, preventing them from being able to swallow food.

Woolley performed a series of delicate operations, and today the two men are healthy and happy. The relationship did not end when the twins were released from the hospital, however.

“He sends me a birthday card every year,” said Mark Keith, of Riverside, who like his brother became a psychiatric nurse. “He went to my high school graduation. A lot of doctors you feel distant from. He doesn’t allow that distance.”

Dr. Carl Grushkin, medical director of Childrens Hospital, called Woolley one of the pioneers of pediatric surgery on the West Coast.

“He’s recognized worldwide as a teacher who has been in the forefront of advancing the surgical care of infants and children,” Grushkin said. Woolley helped train numerous pediatric surgeons who now work at major hospitals across the country and throughout the world, Grushkin said.

Under Woolley’s direction, the hospital recruited doctors trained in such pediatric subspecialties as orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, urology, ophthalmology, dentistry and plastic surgery.

Born in Atlanta, Ga., and raised in Colorado and Ohio by his widowed mother, Woolley did not set out to become a pediatric surgeon after he was graduated in 1950 from Loma Linda University Medical School.

Woolley became a resident in general surgery at Los Angeles County General Hospital. He did not like what he saw. Adult surgical techniques and equipment were being used on children.

“I thought the infants and children were not receiving the type of care which they deserved. I saw newly born babies dying that I knew were surviving in other parts of the country in places where there were better facilities with more adequately trained people.

“A nurse might take care of a man 85 years old and then all of a sudden be taking care of a newborn baby,” he said.

Woolley received a prestigious residency in pediatric surgery at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, affiliated with Harvard University. It is the oldest such program in the country.

He returned to Los Angeles as junior attending pediatric surgeon at County General Hospital (now County-USC Medical Center) and White Memorial Hospital, where he performed the surgeries on Longoria and the Keith twins.

Woolley, who lives in La Canada Flintridge, intends to remain active in “supporting the cause of infants and children.” He plans to lecture to medical students, pediatricians and surgeons in such locations as Perth, Australia, and Beijing, China.

Woolley said the changes in pediatric surgery over the last 31 years have been “thrilling,” with greatly increased survival rates and far more sophisticated technology and techniques.

And the high point of his career? “My entire career has been a high point,” he said. “What could you do that would be more rewarding than taking care of infants and children?”