One of Hoag’s first doctors

Elia Powers

When longtime Newport Beach resident Harry Stickler drives by Hoag

Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, he still marvels at the massive

facility.

“I never thought it would grow so much,” Stickler said. “The city

wasn’t that large, and who ever thought it could handle a hospital

this size?”

Stickler remembers the hospital in its infancy, when the building

was one story high, when the rooms had sliding glass doors, and when

rabbits came through those doors and into patients’ rooms.

Stickler, who was one of Hoag’s first doctors, turned 90 on

Friday.

Like many in his generation who settled in Orange County, he

discovered the region during a stint in the service. He was a U.S.

Army Air Corps Captain and was stationed at the Santa Ana Army Air

Base, where he was a general practitioner who helped wounded

patients.

“It was some of the best training I ever got,” Stickler remembers.

After a stint serving in Japan from 1946 to 1948, Stickler

returned to Newport Beach. He was one of only a few doctors who

opened a medical office in one of the coastal cities -- most

residents drove to Santa Ana for health concerns, Stickler said.

He worked alongside Tom Reeder, one of the first physicians in

Newport Beach.

Early in his practice, Stickler didn’t charge police officers,

firefighters, clergy, nurses and other doctors for check-ups and

other routine examinations. He did charge other patients: $5 for

office visits and $8 for house calls.

He made hundreds of house calls, even up until his final years of

practicing.

“He never rushed when talking to patients,” said Peggy Stickler,

Harry Stickler’s wife. “That was sometimes a problem, because people

had to wait awhile to for their appointment.”

In those days, there were no paramedics, Harry Stickler remembers,

so he would often drive his car to the scene of accidents, put

patients in splints and wait for an ambulance.

After finishing his internal medicine residency at the University

of Minnesota’s medical school, he returned to Newport Beach in 1953

and joined Hoag’s staff. There was no permanent emergency room staff

at the hospital, and area physicians were always on call, Stickler

remembers.

Stickler opened an office on Lido Island along with three other

internists. Well-known cardiologist Michael McNalley, who founded

Hoag’s Cardiology Department, joined him in a private practice.

Stickler served as chief of staff at Hoag from 1962 to 1963.

“It wasn’t that great of a job,” Peggy Stickler said. “He had to

hire his own staff and pay them.”

Stickler said there wasn’t much controversy during his year in

charge, though in one case, he had to instruct a surgeon to stop

sawing casts off patients’ arms at 11 p.m. because it was bothering

other patients.

Stickler, an usher at St. Joachim Roman Catholic Church, served on

Hoag’s board of directors from 1974 to 1977. He retired in 1985 and

still meets his former colleagues once a month for lunch at the

Newport Beach Country Club.

His wife, Ruth, died in 1999, and he married Peggy Stickler in

2001.

Stickler is a father of two, grandfather of six and

great-grandfather of four.

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