Dr. Elsie Giorgi; Physician to the Rich and Poor Alike

Dr. Elsie A. Giorgi, a physician who befriended and cured the ills of both wealthy celebrities and poor minorities on both coasts, has died. She was 87.

Giorgi died Friday in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of a heart attack, entertainer Florence Henderson said Wednesday.

The Bronx-born doctor had served as medical director of USC’s Family Neighborhood Health Services Center for Watts, became a board member of the Watts Health Foundation and in 1987 received its Lifetime Achievement Award.

In Hollywood, she treated and shared friendships with such stars as Henderson, Quincy Jones, Jaclyn Smith, Kathleen Quinlan and Anjelica Huston.

Giorgi also served as medical consultant on the film “The Doctor” starring William Hurt in 1991, and for the television series “Diagnosis Murder” starring Dick Van Dyke.

The youngest of 10 children born to Italian immigrants, Giorgi attended Hunter College in New York on a scholarship but could not afford to go on to medical school. She worked 10 years for a New York trucking company to earn the money to enroll in Columbia Medical School.

Giorgi began her practice as chief resident and later as chief of general medical clinics at Bellevue Hospital. She also established a private practice among Manhattan’s socially elite and was on staff at the East Harlem Clinic.

Moving west in 1962, she continued her dual ministering to the wealthy and the poor, establishing a private office in Beverly Hills and going across town to serve those in Watts. She joined the staffs of Cedars-Sinai and St. John’s Medical Centers and taught at USC, UCLA and UC Irvine.

Giorgi was an early advocate of the team approach to health care and in 1972 developed the concept and later a curriculum to train primary care nurse practitioners. She presented several scholarly papers on community health care, social policy and health care, and the medical aspects of aging.

She never married, telling a reporter in 1993: “We’re talking about 50-odd years ago, and I am Italian, so that means Italian men who want a docile wife and lots of babies. Do you see any trace of a docile person in my eyes?”

One suitor who walked away when she announced she was going to medical school sent her roses each of the three times he married, with a card saying he wished she were the bride. When she needed $5,000 to buy into a medical practice, he heard about it and secretly supplied the funding.

Henderson said Giorgi, a small, witty woman, often likened herself to the television detective “Columbo” because of her unassuming appearance and relentless determination to solve diagnostic riddles.

A memorial service is being planned in September. Donations can be sent to Planned Parenthood of New York City, Attn. Lenn Shebar, 26 Bleeker St., New York, N.Y. 10012, or to the Union of Concerned Scientists, 2 Brattle Square, Cambridge, MA 02238.