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LEADING BY DOING
DR. ROBERT J. STEIN, KM AND THE FOUNDING OF THE ORDER OF MALTA CLINIC OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Dr. Robert J. (Bob) Stein, KM is adamant: he is not the founder of the Order of Malta Clinic of Northern California. He credits that distinction to the two men who enlisted him and a small cadre of other dedicated Order of Malta Members in the Clinic cause more than 20 years ago: The then-Western Association of the Order of Malta President Richard (Dick) Madden and Bishop Allen Vigneron of the Diocese of Oakland.
Modesty aside, over nearly 40 years as an active and committed Order of Malta Member, no one can dispute Bob Stein’s role and impact in the Clinic’s establishment and growth. The 2016 recipient of the Silver Chalice Award, he has made an indelible mark on the Clinic’s success as a founding organizer and former long-time member of the Medical Committee.
Born and raised in Jamestown, North Dakota in a devoted Roman Catholic household, Bob attended college at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and medical school at St. Louis University in Missouri. A residency in anesthesiology at the University of California, San Francisco brought him and his young family to the Bay Area in the 1970s, where fate intervened, and he was first introduced to the Order of Malta.
Bob officially became a Member in 1985 and was invested in 1988. His long-standing commitment to the Order was fueled in part through his and wife Helen Mary’s pilgrimages to Lourdes starting in 2001, and two years later Bob was invited to become part of a small, intensely dedicated group of Members who took up the mantle to build an Order of Malta medical clinic in Oakland to minister to the Bay Area’s sick, poor, and uninsured.
“In 2003 my friend Dick Madden hosted a dinner with Bishop Vigneron and a small group of us to explore what it would take to create a clinic at the Cathedral,” he explains. “Over the next five years, everyone chipped in and took on assignments to make it happen.” Bob went to Los Angeles to tour the small Order of Malta Clinic there, and others among the group also contributed financial resources and shared their respective areas of expertise – in health care, financing, fundraising, architecture, construction, and more – to make the Clinic a reality. The group also designed the service parameters for the new Clinic, most of which remain in place today. A milestone came in 2007, when the group secured annual funding from the Western Association of the Order of Malta to operate the new Clinic. On September 2, 2008, the Order of Malta Clinic of Northern California opened its doors to the first patients.
As awareness of the Clinic has grown, so too has the need for full-service patient care. The Clinic now has 12 volunteer medical specialists on staff and strong partnerships with John Muir and Sutter Health that enable the Clinic to provide a full spectrum of primary and specialty care. And while the retired department chairman of anesthesiology at Mt. Diablo Hospital Medical Center no longer serves on the Clinic Board of Directors, he continues to participate in the peer review process and remains active in discussions on the Clinic’s future. “The need for our services throughout California only continues to grow,” Bob explains. “Building on our first 15 years, we’re exploring ways to expand our mobile clinics to each more patients, and considering opening new clinics in San Francisco, San Jose, and even Southern California,” he says. “The single best way to fulfill the Order of Malta mission to care for the sick and the poor is through our medical clinics.”
The Original Order of Malta Clinic of Northern California Planning Committee
Dick Madden
Bishop Allen Vigneron
Bill Brusher
Gene Cattolica, MD
Frank Heffernan
Bob Kilmartin
Mark LeClerc, MD
Bob Masi, MD
Bill McInerney
Bob Stein, MD
Malcom Visbal
Tom Greerty
