Larry Hill, MD ’67: Physician and Philanthropist

Larry and Terry Hill set up four charitable gift annuities to support their own retirement and for the eventual support of the UCSF School of Medicine Class of 1967 Endowed Scholarship.

In his three decades as a physician, Larry Hill, MD ’67, has treated patients from South America to South Africa. He served in the Army Reserves, the Peace Corps, and the State Department, doing tours in Mali, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and South Africa.

“Medicine is different from most careers,” Hill says. “The human body is the same wherever you go.”

Hill grew up in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, the son of a federal judge. After initially tapping his math skills to train as an actuary, he decided instead to study medicine and graduated from Princeton University in 1963 with a degree in biology. Then he came to UCSF for his medical degree, specializing in internal medicine, which was a good match for his outgoing personality. He found the training tough, his classmates supportive, and the faculty inspirational.

“Being a doctor is a profession of storytelling and listening,” he says. “I love getting to know people as human beings, not just as conditions.” He met his wife Terry while she was a student at UC Berkeley, and they married in 1966. Hill joined the Peace Corps after completing his first year of residency at UCLA. He and Terry headed to Venezuela, where they worked, explored the country, and welcomed their first child, son Trevor.

“It was the best time,” he says. “It was two years of getting to know a new land, a new culture, a new language.”

He was surprised one day to get a call from Lloyd “Holly” Smith, MD, longtime UCSF chair of medicine, who encouraged Hill to return to UCSF to complete his residency and serve as chief resident at San Francisco General Hospital (now Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center).

Larry Hill, MD (right), and Lawrence DePolo, MD, both 1967 graduates of the UCSF School of Medicine, celebrate their 50th reunion at Alumni Weekend 2017.

While the Hills had planned to continue in the Peace Corps, their newborn daughter Rebecca’s congenital heart condition persuaded them to settle in Eureka, California, where Hill served as the town’s first board-certified internist. After several itinerant years working for the State Department, the Hills retired and returned to San Francisco—where they remain engaged and energetic members of the community and philanthropic supporters of UCSF.

“How could I not give back? UCSF was a wonderful school that allowed me to get into a wonderful profession,” Hill says. “Holly Smith changed my life with that phone call to come back to UCSF.”

In 1999, Hill joined several donors to establish the Holly Smith Distinguished Professorship in Science and Medicine, currently held by Robert M. Wachter, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine.

The Hills have set up four charitable gift annuities so they can receive income during their lifetime and for the eventual support of the UCSF School of Medicine Class of 1967 Endowed Scholarship. “It makes all the sense in the world to me,” he says. “You’re making a significant contribution but also getting a reasonable return for the rest of your life.” Hill also gives back by working with UCSF students as a volunteer teacher and mentor.

“I’m glad I didn’t end up as an actuary,” he says. “I’ve been one very contented physician.”