Several years ago, physician Steve Morris was struggling to save a burned infant while on a humanitarian mission to Africa. The head of the University of Utah's trauma unit, Morris knew the child would die without sophisticated medical intervention, so he told colleagues back in Salt Lake City about the situation.
Jane Shelby, a professor of surgery, knew exactly whom to call: William Close, a Wyoming country doctor with years of philanthropic experience in Africa and a key mentor to many U. medical faculty and students. Morris' story, which has a happy ending, was recounted last month at Close's Jan. 18 memorial near his Big Piney home where he died of a heart attack at age 84.
Close, father of actress Glenn Close ("Fatal Attraction," TV series "Damages"), who spoke at her father's memorial, became famous for his work in Africa in the 1960s and 70s, recounted in four books he wrote. For 16 years, he provided medical care in Congo and eventually angered its dictatorial president with honest assessments of his failings.
He arrived in Kinshasa as one of three surgeons at the capital city's 1,500-bed hospital just as the country was achieving independence from Belgium. Close later ran the large facility, then launched a maternity hospital, which averaged 120 deliveries a day, as well as hospital ship that treated people up and down the Congo River.
After his departure from Congo in 1976, Close retired to Wyoming's Sublette County, the broad valley at the head of the Green River, to enjoy fishing, horses and dogs with his wife Bettine, but was pulled back into practice as a family physician, say veteran and retired U. medical faculty.
In referring his rural Wyoming patients to specialists at the U. beginning in the early 1980s, he began mentoring faculty and students alike, recalled Dirk Noyes, a surgical oncologist.
"He was a warm soul who spoke straight from the heart," Noyes said. "He was so passionate about the work and the potential all physicians have to help the world."
Noyes' association with Close inspired him to go on humanitarian missions beginning in the early 1990s to Ghana and Kenya. Close, meanwhile, became a frequent visitor to the U., where he gave talks to standing-room-only medical audiences, said Shelby, who retired to Montana in 2005.
"Countless students from all over the world were invited to the Close residence in Big Piney, hosted by Bill and Tine, and introduced to medical practice that included house calls, a practice that is extinct in most of our country," Shelby said at Close's memorial.
The U. gave Close an honorary doctorate and chose him to give the 2001 commencement address. He received a standing ovation after expounding on the widening gap between the world's rich and poor in the face of global economic expansion.
At the memorial, Shelby recounted how Close answered her 2 a.m. phone call soliciting help with the African burn patient. Working diplomatic connections, Close arranged to have the baby and her mother flown to Utah to undergo treatment at the Intermountain Burn Center, where the child recovered.
"His message to a lot of people was service to mankind," Shelby said in an interview. "It was a reason for a lot of people to get into medicine, but after a few years of the grind and the bureaucracy, people lose sight of that."
