Paul D. Quick ’83

Paul D. Quick ’83, of San Francisco; Nov. 2, of multiple organ failure post heart transplant. He was last employed by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), Tom Waddell Health Center/Homeless Programs, where he practiced general internal medicine and HIV care. He was the medical co-chair of Project Homeless Connect and had been working to re-establish a Tenderloin adult day health program for the HIV population. Diagnosed with a congenital heart defect at age 1, he underwent open heart surgery at age 5 and was pronounced cured. During his 20s he had abnormal heart rhythms and by age 44 developed progressive congestive heart failure due to a gene deletion. He attended Brown but left in 1981 without a degree and moved to California, where he attended City College and became an emergency medical technician working in the East Bay area. After attending Stanford-Foothill Paramedic Program in 1985, he worked as a paramedic in East Oakland with Allied Ambulance. In 1988 he joined the San Francisco DPH Paramedic Division. He returned to City College part-time while working as a paramedic and in 1991 graduated. He then returned to Brown and graduated in 1993 with a concentration focusing on an interdisciplinary approach to HIV/AIDS, sexuality, and addiction. Back on campus he appeared in two plays, was a contributing writer to the Brown Daily Herald, and served on the Committees for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues and Independent Concentration Studies. He was named a 1993 Joslin award winner. He received his MD from UC School of Medicine at Davis in 1997 and trained in primary care internal medicine at Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School from 1997 to 2002. He practiced at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco before returning to DPH as a physician in 2002, working full-time until his cardiac disease forced him to retire in 2008, when he was placed on the heart transplant list. He was active in politics and the labor movement. He was an organizer for the Service Employees International Union and a member of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists. He was elected to the San Francisco Green Party County Council in 2004 and was a dedicated San Francisco Giants fan. He is survived by cousins, friends, coworkers, and patients whose lives he touched.