{"id":24108,"date":"2022-02-04T14:34:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T22:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/?p=24108"},"modified":"2024-01-16T16:24:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T00:24:09","slug":"dr-thomas-steele-instrumental-in-palliative-care-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/news\/dr-thomas-steele-instrumental-in-palliative-care-retires\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Thomas Steele, Instrumental in Palliative Care, Retires"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article\">\n\t<header class=\"header\">\n\t\t<span class=\"type\"><\/span>\t\t<h1>Dr. Thomas Steele, Instrumental in Palliative Care, Retires<\/h1>\t\t<time>February 4, 2022<\/time>\n\t<\/header>\n\t<div id=\"block_7d99b1760dd6d56fc8314830aad77a74\" class=\"shs-block block-news-article entry-content\">\n\t\t<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"acf-innerblocks-container\">\n\n<p>Retiring doctor Thomas Steele could be called the founder of Samaritan Health Services\u2019 Palliative Care, but if you know his history, he could also be called Good Samaritan\u2019s Doogie Howser.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On weekends, as a youth, Steele was occasionally found in Good Samaritan by his father\u2019s side helping plaster casts or suturing a patient. When he started his private practice, Steele said he fielded questions from the public about whether he was old enough to be a doctor.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI got that I was too young to be a doctor for a while,\u201d said Steele. \u201cI\u2019ll take that as long as I can get it.\u201d&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Steele\u2019s father, Dr. Robert \u201cBob\u201d Steele, was a renowned orthopedic surgeon who performed the second total hip replacement in the state of Oregon and the first total knee replacement at Good Samaritan. The elder Steele retired as the chief of staff after more than 35 years of service.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI grew up in Good Sam and would follow my dad into the ER when I was a teenager,\u201d said Steele. \u201cI scrubbed in surgeries with him, that got me started down the medicine track.\u201d&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI would say that he allowed me to do things that a medical student would be allowed to do,\u201d Steele added. \u201cHe taught me how to tie sutures, he let me hold the retractor, but I was not doing any cutting or anything like that.\u201d&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While growing up in Corvallis, Steele played the clarinet and saxophone in groups including the Corvallis Youth Symphony.&nbsp; After graduating from Corvallis High School, his life took a different path. Steele studied archeology at Oberlin College in Ohio, worked at a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Seattle, worked at the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago and even had a four-month stint as a sculpture\u2019s apprenticeship under the tutelage of Norman Rockwell\u2019s son, the late Peter Rockwell.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI kind of went through one of those trying to figure out what the heck I wanted to do and ended up taking a couple of years off and then gravitated back towards medicine,\u201d Steele said.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After graduating from Duke, Steele established a practice in McMinnville. Soon he was splitting his time between Corvallis and Yamhill County. Eventually Barry Smith recruited Steele for a full-time position working in the same emergency department he had assisted as a child.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both of Steele\u2019s parents left lasting impacts on Good Samaritan. Steele\u2019s mother, Emily, was a stained glass artist who designed and built Good Samaritan\u2019s Chapel windows. The glass in the chapel is actually a three-dimensional mosaic, a technique Emily perfected at her home studio. Both of Steele\u2019s parents passed away in 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly five years ago Steele was given the task to create a system-wide palliative care program for Samaritan.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPalliative care looks at anybody with serious illness where their quality of life or length of life is impacted by that illness,\u201d Steele Said. \u201cWe help them to sort out their own personal goals, medical goals and make sure that their treatments are in alignment with that.\u201d&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The program he expanded now serves Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties. It includes two integrated programs, one at GSRMC working with the new transvascular aortic valve replacement and the other a community-wide program serving heart patients in Linn County.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDr. Steele has been instrumental in expanding and maturing the SHS Palliative Care Program,\u201d said Barry Smith, M.D.&nbsp; \u201cHe took the program from a fledgling enterprise at GSRMC to most inpatient facilities and specific outpatient focus for specific diagnosis.\u201d&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides palliative care Steele has been a leader in education at GSRMC.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDr. Steele earned the Internal Medicine Faculty Member of the Year award several times due to his tireless and excellent education of residents,\u201d Smith said.&nbsp;<br>\u201cI really love teaching,\u201d Steele said.&nbsp; \u201cI love seeing the residents grow and seeing them learn their independence.\u201d&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In retirement, Steele plans to assist his wife Kelli in helping their autistic son Brian\u2019s transition to an adult life. \u201cIf I had a goal, it\u2019s really helping my son transition to adulthood in as thoughtful way as I can,\u201d Steele said.&nbsp; \u201cAs more of a coach and a supporter than a guide or anything like that.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<aside>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"360\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Thomas-Steele-CO.jpg\" class=\"attachment-cta size-cta wp-post-image\" alt=\"Picture of Dr. Thomas Steele\" srcset=\"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Thomas-Steele-CO.jpg 360w, https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Thomas-Steele-CO-300x250.jpg 300w, https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Thomas-Steele-CO-120x100.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/figure>\t\t<\/aside>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doctor Thomas Steele, instrumental in developing palliative care, at Samaritan&#8217;s Benton, Lincoln and Linn County locations retires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":11984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","_shs_workflow_notes":"02\/04\/2022","_shs_exclude_from_navigation":false,"_shs_promote_article_on_blogs":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"news-topics":[287],"news-types":[272],"services":[],"specialty":[38],"class_list":["post-24108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","news-topics-quality","news-types-news","specialty-palliative-medicine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24108"},{"taxonomy":"news-topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topics?post=24108"},{"taxonomy":"news-types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-types?post=24108"},{"taxonomy":"services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/services?post=24108"},{"taxonomy":"specialty","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/specialty?post=24108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}