Bruce William Steinhauer M.D., 90, lately of the Heights in Houston, died Saturday, May 27, 2023, a peaceful end to a long life of service and stubborn but good-humored devotion as a son, as a brother, as a father, as an uncle, as a grandfather, as an Episcopalian and, crucially, as a physician and as a husband to Gillian Clare Steinhauer (née Pearson)
Bruce was born in Toledo, Ohio, on March 26, 1933, to William and Charlotte Steinhauer, an electrical engineer at Toledo Edison and a public-school teacher, respectively. Bruce along with his older sister Carolyn and younger brother Roger grew up in Toledo attending Toledo Public Schools.
At DeVilbiss High School—class of 1951—Bruce served as Editor-in-Chief of the DeVilbiss Prism with a regular column “Ramblings” that was named best column by the Toledo Blade. His deftness as a piano player had him playing multiple genres in multiple ensembles, including gigs as a member of Dave Jordan and His Swinging Six (a group that also played Polish weddings with Dave using his given name of Wisniewski). Bruce’s many contributions to the school (His yearbook blurb lists eight different commissions, councils and committees) combined with a stellar academic career set him up for opportunities and success at Amherst College—class of 1955—and then Harvard Medical School—1959.
In July of 1959, Bruce began practicing medicine in earnest, as an intern on the Harvard Service at Boston City Hospital. The previous month, in June of 1959, Bruce had met Gillian. Although Gillian was working at Harvard Medical School as a research assistant in the Biophysics Laboratory, Bruce and Gillian met a few miles east at the Church of the Advent on Beacon Hill. Because it was so obviously right, Bruce and Gillian married in that same church just half-a-year later, on January 2, 1960. What followed those auspicious beginnings were an immensely successful and giving 60-year career in medicine, running to his official retirement in 2019, and an oak-strong 63-year marriage marked by a love that sustained Bruce and Gillian, and by a hands-on generosity that provided unfaltering support to family and friends, schools and charities and churches, and, frankly, anyone in need of some help.
Bruce’s medical career encompassed both direct service to patients in internal medicine and hospital leadership. Even as he took on big and challenging administrative (and political) responsibilities, Bruce was always a practicing physician, making rounds and seeing patients at the hospital or a clinic or in their homes. The day after completing his training at Boston City Hospital (June 30, 1962), he started service in the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a captain, stationed first in Korea, at Seoul U.S. Military Hospital, and then in New Jersey, at Walson Army Hospital in Fort Dix. Following Bruce’s two years of Army service, Bruce and Gillian returned to Boston, where Bruce completed a year-long fellowship in infectious disease with Dr. Maxwell Finland at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory, Boston City Hospital. In 1961, Bruce and Gillian started their own family. Daughter Alison who was born September 10, 1961, in Boston (baptized at the Church of the Advent). Son Eric was born January 7, 1963, in Seoul.
After Boston came Detroit and, for Bruce, 27 years at Henry Ford Hospital (HFH). A few years after joining the staff at HFH in July of 1965, Bruce started taking on growing responsibilities as a hospital administrator. By 1968 Bruce had become Division Head of the Third Medical Division. Bruce’s HFH career culminated with four years as Chairman of the Board of Governors for the Medical Group Practice and Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs. Throughout his time at HFH and beyond, Bruce was an engaged leader, working not only with his own patients but with staff at all levels and in all parts of the hospital. He did a lot of walking. At the same time, he became an expert in medical business models and service models for patient care. Always up-to-speed on methods for improving care and new approaches such as the then-novel HMO, Bruce was an expert with real-world experience. In 1975 he took on the challenge of launching one of the HFH system’s first three “satellites” as Medical Director of the Fairlane Medical Center, in Dearborn. Bruce moved back to the main hospital in 1988. HFH Fairlane is still serving patients, almost 50 years later.
Soon after moving to Detroit, Bruce and Gillian moved again to Grosse Pointe, a beautiful, walkable suburb, where Alison, Eric and son John (born August 27, 1967) grew up. The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul in Detroit played a central role in the Steinhauers’ life, with Bruce serving on the vestry, including several stints as Senior Warden (in years when former Michigan Governor G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams was rotated off.) Weekends and vacations featured many family car trips including frequent visits to relatives in Toledo and summer trips to a cottage on Lake Huron in Alpena, MI. Whenever he could, Bruce would hit the water, sailing in Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River and swimming in what he often called the “brisk” waters of Lake Huron. In 1976, Gillian, fresh off earning a J.D. from the University of Michigan, started a new career as an attorney. On December 1, 1982, daughter Elspeth was born, completing the nuclear family. With Gillian practicing law and Bruce secure in his career, he took a larger role parenting Elspeth, in some measure because she was sufficiently portable and well-behaved to accompany him on house calls.
After Detroit came Boston again. For six years starting in 1992, Bruce served as CEO of the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, with a new family home in Prides Crossing, just north of Boston. Bruce led Lahey through major changes. When he arrived, Lahey was a multi- specialty clinic with a single site. By the time Bruce left, the Clinic—now Lahey-Hitchcock due to a merger he shepherded—had 29 sites, most of them primary care locations.
Bruce’s final professional move was to Memphis. In 1998 he started as President/CEO of the Regional Medical Center (The Med) a move he described as “closing the circle” because, like Boston City Hospital, The Med Is a safety net hospital. Bruce stayed on past his expected 18-month term, for almost nine years, working with staff, and also working with the city and the county and the state (trips to Nashville) and the federal government (trips to D.C.), to keep an indispensable Memphis institution healthy.
From 2007 until his retirement in 2019, Bruce continued as a practicing physician at the Med. From home in Midtown Memphis, Bruce biked to work whenever possible. Bruce’s work as a doctor never stopped. In Detroit, he volunteered one night a week at the Mother Cabrini Clinic. In Memphis he worked one night a week at Clinica Esperanza. In 2007, he worked three months at the Maseno Mission Hospital in Kenya. He was passionate about both welcoming and training new physicians. While working at the Med as a professor of clinical practice for the University of Tennessee, he was recognized by the medical residents for his effective teaching and compassionate patient care. In 2013, he was awarded the Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award by the Memphis Business Journal. Bruce was a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Society of Medical Administrators. For 19 years, until 2005, Bruce served as a Trustee of the McGregor fund which supports projects in Detroit, including medical service projects.
Bruce and Gillian moved to the Heights neighborhood of Houston in March 2020. Bruce has spent the last two years of his life in the memory care unit of The Village of the Heights where the fantastic folks who cared for him fondly called him “Doc.”
Bruce is loved and will be missed by too many Steinhauers, Humphreys, Hixons, Cousinos, Sussmans, Sandweisses, and others to list. He had a special cherished impact on his family, but his family also recognizes and takes great pride in the immense and positive impact he had on every community he was a part of: patients who knew him and their families who didn’t, whole buildings-worth of doctors, nurses and other essential workers, and multiple congregations. For two decades, in the summer, Bruce’s extended family has been gathering in Ohio at Lakeside Chautauqua on the shores of Lake Erie. Lakeside is about 50 miles from Toledo and about 20 miles, as the crow flies, from Huron, Ohio where Bruce, Roger and Carolyn spent parts of their childhood summers with Bill and Charlotte in cottages made from Toledo Edison’s retired trolley cars. This summer, Bruce’s earthly remains will be planted at a memorial garden in Lakeside. His life will be celebrated on Saturday, June 3 at 2:00 p.m. at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in the Heights, 1819 Heights Boulevard, Houston, Texas. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, contributions in Bruce’s memory be made to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.heightsfuneralhome.com for the Steinhauer family.
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