Deceased July 13, 2016


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In Memory

Dwight W. Fitterer Jr., who had a distinguished career as a physician in San Francisco, died in hospice July 13. In his last years, Dwight had mobility problems that curtailed what had been an active life with much international traveling. 

Dwight prepared for Amherst at the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia. At Amherst, he majored in biology and was on the staff of the News Bureau and WAMF.

Dwight went on to medical school at the University of Rochester and in 1960 began his senior residency with Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco. He moved directly from residency to medical practice and leadership within Kaiser’s physician group, the Permanente Medical Group. In 1967, at age 36, he became the physician-in-charge and later physician-in-chief of the Kaiser hospital in South San Francisco.

An obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle describes Dwight as a “visionary leader who hired specially trained physicians from great programs all over the nation” and convinced the Kaiser Foundation Board to build a new hospital in South San Francisco to meet future needs. Dwight retired in 1992.

While at Kaiser, Dwight earned a degree from Harvard Business School and served as treasurer of the Permanente Medical Group.

The Chronicle obituary said, “Dwight carried himself with grace and loved to surprise people with his quick wit and ironic humor.” The paper quoted a close friend as describing Dwight as “charming, witty, keen and precise.”

Dwight enjoyed gardening, tennis and world traveling that took him to more than 40 countries. At one time, he and his wife, Marjorie, owned an 18-acre vineyard in Sonoma County.

Besides Marjorie, Dwight is survived by two daughters from a previous marriage and two grandsons.

George Gates ’53