Alumni Spotlight: Cleveland Lewis’ Lifelong Commitment to Caring for Others

Cleveland Lewis discovered his true calling at a very young age. “I was raised by my grandmother and my aunt,” says Lewis, explaining how, at age 5, he moved to Los Angeles while his parents stayed in Texas. When his grandmother became ill, he wanted nothing more than to make her better. “Her passing when I was 11 empowered me to become a doctor,” he says.

Lewis, now 93, shares how that young boy, hoping to heal his grandmother, went on to earn his MD from the UC Irvine School of Medicine. He spent the next six decades working as a surgeon. Throughout his journey, Lewis never wavered in his compassion for others and commitment to saving lives.

“I wanted to be a surgeon,” he says, “so I could take care of people and help them get well.”

From Hope to Healing

Long before he was a surgeon, Lewis worked as a newspaper boy, helping to put food on his grandparent’s table.

His first step in becoming a doctor was attending UCLA for his undergraduate degree. “I had to work all four years of college, and by my third year, I was making lots of money working 40 to 48 hours a week, but my grades suffered,” he says. He considered joining the Air Force after being recruited to become a pilot, but instead remained steadfast in his goal of one day becoming a physician. He got a job as a stack supervisor at the UCLA library in order to work fewer hours and improve his grades. He earned his bachelor’s degree from UCLA in 1954.

“I wanted to go to medical school, but I didn’t have any money, so I called the draft board and had them draft me,” he says. After basic training, he was sent to a facility in Fort Bliss, Texas, but he realized he wasn’t receiving the medical training he needed, so he pleaded with his superiors to move him. “I said, ‘I’ve got a college education and want to be a doctor,’ and they then sent me to Tacoma, Washington, to train, where I worked in the operating room.”

After two years in the Army, Lewis knew he wanted to be a surgeon and was admitted to the California College of Medicine, which later became the UC Irvine School of Medicine. “It was a great experience,” says Lewis, who enjoyed spending his fourth year of training at the LA County Hospital and hoped to stay in California for his internship. “It would have been a natural transition,” he says, “but because of all the political conflict going on in those days, I couldn’t get an internship in California.”

Lewis, whose journey runs parallel with the Civil Rights Movement, tells stories peppered with references to historic events. For example, he recalls working as a teen at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. “It was during World War II, and then they had the Zoot Suit Riots,” he says, referencing five days of rioting in 1943 when white servicemembers and civilians attacked hundreds of predominantly Mexican American victims.

He also talks about joining Beta Sigma Tau, the country’s first interracial fraternity, as an undergraduate at UCLA.

And when Lewis says he struggled to secure an internship despite graduating second in his class, it’s emblematic of the racial segregation of hospitals at the time. It wasn’t until 1965, when Medicare was signed into law, that hospitals became subject to Title VII regulations of the Civil Rights Act and had critical funding tied to desegregation.

So, after graduating in 1960, Lewis ended up in Michigan, spending one year in Detroit as an intern. He then spent the next two years as a general practitioner in Los Angeles while trying to get a surgical residency. During that time, he met Joe Weinberg, MD, chief of surgery at the Long Beach VA (now the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center). Weinberg was instrumental in getting Lewis a surgical residency in Oakland.

“Dr. Weinberg called an associate in the Oakland area and recommended me, and that’s how I got residency,” says Lewis. After finishing his residency, Lewis stayed in Northern California for another seven or eight years.

He remembers working in the emergency room during the People’s Park protest, when the Berkeley Police Department and other officers used deadly force in their clash with protestors. “They indiscriminately shot people who were peacefully protesting the university taking over the park,” says Lewis of the May 15, 1969 event, also known as “Bloody Thursday.”

In discussing racial and political tensions, Lewis’ wife, Gerrie, stresses how none of those tensions ever make it beyond the emergency room doors.

“As a doctor, you never care who comes through your ER,” she says, turning to Lewis. “You never ask, ‘Are you white? Are you Black? Are you a Republican or a Democrat?’ You just say, ‘Let’s make you better.’ I think that’s a lesson the world could use right now.”

Taking a Leadership Role

Lewis eventually returned to Southern California and joined Fountain Valley Hospital as a trauma vascular surgeon and became chief of surgery. In addition to helping countless patients, he also mentored students. “I often had students from osteopathic medical schools in my office when I was a surgeon,” he says.

Lewis was also drawn to supporting his fellow doctors, which led him to become a medical director. “I went to UC Irvine and started taking classes in a program for medical management,” he says. (UC Irvine also now offers an MBA program in healthcare leadership.)

He became an advocate for health equity and helped doctors navigate the complex HMO environment. As a medical director, he worked at Pacific Care, SCAN and Wellpoint, and was also an independent contractor for Anthem Blue Cross. “In addition, I had students from UC Irvine when I was a medical director at SCAN Health Care, teaching them about the practice of medicine in an HMO environment,” says Lewis.

Although Lewis officially retired in 2020, Gerrie says he’s still working. “He keeps a stethoscope and a blood pressure machine in his car,” she says. “He’s always on call, always there for people. You can’t get it out of his blood.”

Continued Learning and Compassion

Lewis remains engaged with students and with his alma mater. He recently returned to UC Irvine to tour its new hospital and meet with students from the Program in Medical Education Leadership Education to Advance Doctoring – African, Black and Caribbean (PRIME LEAD-ABC), a program founded in 2019. PRIME LEAD-ABC trains physicians to address the diverse health needs of Black communities, eliminate health inequities, and amplify underrepresented voices.

“We need programs like that,” says Lewis. “And I think it’s very helpful to have kids from those kinds of [underserved] areas go back and support their local community. It’s very rewarding and helpful and brings pride to the community.”

His advice to students is to “work hard, study hard and believe in yourself.” He further advises those starting their medical careers to continue learning, explaining that their growth is what helps make the world a better place. “As a physician, you never stop learning,” he says. Continuous learning, centered around the welfare of others, has been the anchor of Lewis’ long career in medicine. “That was the passion I developed from wanting to learn how to care for my grandmother,” he says. “And that then extended to caring for everyone else.”

— Shani Murray