Dr. Philip Lee

Dr. Philip Lee grew up around the Palo Alto Medical Clinic as one of Dr. Russel Lee's sons. He recalled that in high school, "Fritz Roth's son was one of my best friends. We would go down to the Peninsula Creamery for lunch, and because Fritz had a charge account there, we'd all charge our burgers and milkshakes to the Roths for lunch. After Fritz retired – this was in the late '50s, probably – he called me and said, 'Phil, would you come and see me after hours, after you finish at the office?' He lived in Los Altos, and I said 'Sure.'"

"My dad came in about a minute later and said, 'Did Fritz just call you?' I don't know whether he was listening, but he knew. And I said, 'He wanted me to make a house call after I finished at the office.' I had a bunch of patients waiting, but my dad said, 'I'll take care of them. You go see Fritz right now.' So I did, and Fritz was in acute pulmonary edema and would have died had I waited until after office hours. We treated him first of all with morphine and tourniquets and oxygen, then I went to the hospital with him. He came out of it, but had my dad not come in there and said to go.... His instinct about Fritz was much better than mine."