SAN CLEMENTE : Her Rx of Medicine, Love Will Be Missed

When Emilie S. Loeffler moved to San Clemente in 1967, much of South County was still sprawling grassland and a woman doctor was as rare as the housing tracts that have since sprouted across the region.

The 81-year-old internist will retire from her practice at the end of this month after spending the last 25 years witnessing vast changes in the landscape and in medical care in Orange County.

Loeffler, one of the first women doctors in South County, said she is retiring because “I want to go out when it’s my own choice,” adding that recent changes in the medical profession have hastened her decision.

“I’ve found myself spending more time with paperwork than with patients,” said Loeffler, a Capistrano Beach resident. “I just cannot practice that way . . . that’s not what I was trained to do.”

Officials at Samaritan Medical Center-San Clemente said Loeffler’s decision has saddened dozens of patients and staff members at the hospital.

“Emilie is a consummate professional who is able to practice the art of science and medicine with love,” said hospital administrator Tony Struthers. “Her sense of humor has kept us going all these years.”

Loeffler, who entered the medical field before penicillin was widely used, graduated from medical school in 1948. She moved to San Clemente in 1967 after practicing in Philadelphia and at a U.S. Army hospital in Kentucky.

“I was definitely an outsider when I moved here,” Loeffler said. “The other doctors were not used to having a woman doctor around. It was hard for people to accept the fact that I was equally well-trained.”

Months after she launched her practice in San Clemente, “my secretary was still making more money than me,” Loeffler recalled.

But Loeffler, a daughter of Hungarian immigrants from New York, established a reputation as a loyal and caring physician. She has also worked at South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach and Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo.

Many of Loeffler’s patients said they are saddened by her retirement. “She is more a friend than a doctor,” said 81-year-old Louise Fox, a retired nurse who has been one of Loeffler’s patients for the past 20 years. “She listens to your little troubles and she is a great human being. I have to look for another doctor, but I doubt that I’ll find another one like her.”

“I’m taking it pretty hard,” said another patient, 41-year-old Diane Shirley, also of San Clemente. “I hate to lose her. She’s such a fine person and an extremely sharp doctor.”

Loeffler said she plans to spend her retirement learning to play the organ, a hobby she took up seven years ago.

“I want to pursue things that will challenge my mind,” Loeffler said.

A recent visitor to her home asked if she had any regrets about retiring.

She pondered the question, then said wistfully: “I love my patients. I regret that I cannot go on being their doctor forever.”