From groundouts to groundwork: David Charp
David Charp, a retired internist living in Northern California, knows how to put the proper spin on things.
“Though I had a medical career with no particular academic honors,” he says, “I did see a lot of patients for free, probably made 3,000 house calls and never sent a patient to a collection agency.
“And maybe no med school alum has a better fastball and slider.”
At 79, Charp (MD ’70) still laces up his cleats each week as a player in the Northern California Baseball League—a league for the average guy who loves the game and for retired professional players.
Charp pitched for Rutgers University in the 1960s before coming to Pitt Med. He recalls catching the tail end of Pittsburgh Pirates games at Forbes Field after his classwork was done for the day.
“They were an up-and-coming team but weren’t drawing crowds,” says Charp. “They would open up the stadium in the 6th inning to anyone who wanted to watch. I would go in and purposefully sit in right field so I could watch Roberto Clemente. He could throw a bullet from right field to third base.”
But while America’s Pastime is a big part of his life now, it fell off Charp’s radar for years after becoming a practicing physician and raising a family.
He and his wife, Gail, headed west after he graduated from Pitt Med. Charp took a job with the U.S. Public Health Service and practiced in southern New Mexico for a couple of years, doing everything from treating snake bites to delivering babies.
After landing permanently in Santa Rosa, California, Charp opened a private office that he ran for 40 years.
About the time he retired in 2014, Charp worked with a few other physicians to launch the Jewish Community Free Clinic in Santa Rosa. At the start, the clinic was open one evening every week or two in a synagogue. A family then donated a house, which Charp and his colleagues converted into a four-exam-room clinic.
After the donation of the house, the clinic was no longer just an evening operation, and Charp volunteered there until about a year ago.
Charp estimates the clinic, which is still running, has saved the city and state millions of dollars because “half of these people would’ve gone straight to the emergency room.”
