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Dr Dave the Book

Dr. Dave
A Profile of David E. Smith, M.D.,
Founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics

By Clark S. Sturges

Preface
Twenty-five years ago, on June 7, 1967, David E. Smith, M.D., 28 years old, opened the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco, the first of its kind in the United States and the catalyst for a free clinic movement that would become worldwide. Dr. Dave believed health care was a right, not a privilege, and that it should be free for all who need it. Two and a half decades later, the issue of free or affordable health care for all Americans was a major topic in the 1992 political campaigns.

The "free" meant much more to Dave than "no charge" and introduced a radical health-care philosophy emphasizing medical treatment free from red tape, free from value judgments, free from eligibility requirements, emotional hassles, frozen medical protocol, moralizing, and mystification. The clinic opened as a response to the medical needs of 100,000 young hippies who were descending on San Francisco for the Summer of Love. On that day in June, Dave wasn't sure the clinic would last the month, let alone the summer.

Today the clinic - actually a group of clinics

- is alive and well to the surprise of everyone who was involved with the clinic in 1967. Along with primary care, the clinics focus on concerns such as chemical dependency, AIDS prevention and ... 

Healing the Hippies

On January 14, 1967, the first Human Be-In was held in Golden Gate Park. Some 30,000 hippies (coined from Norman Mailer's "hipster") wearing beards, love beads, peace paint, psychedelic costumes -and sometimes nothing - gathered to celebrate joy and love and rock 'n' roll. Most were stoned.

Across the country the media flashed images of these kids laughing and dancing, and soon teenagers from Cedar Rapids and Cincinnati and Lubbock let it be known that come summer they would flock to San Francisco and the Haight to stage a counter-culture revolt and immerse themselves in sex, drugs, and music.
The city government was not amused...

Editorial Reviews
The author, Clark S. Sturges [email protected] , June 8, 1998
How I Wrote This Book

The best printed sources for DR. DAVE were LOVE NEEDS CARE by Dr. David E. Smith and John Luce (Little, Brown, 1968) and THE HAIGHT ASHBURY FREE MEDICAL CLINICS: STILL FREE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, 1967 -- 1987, by Dr. David E. Smith and Richard B. Seymour (Partisan Press, 1986).

More important to the development of the story, however, were 40 interviews with Dave Smith and with his family, friends, and colleagues. Of these, 27 were taped, 8 with Dr. Smith.

Key parts of the story focus first on why Dr. Smith risked all he had achieved professionally to open a storefront clinic to treat the medical needs of thousands of hippies during the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco, and second on the recovery process for drug and alcohol addiction.

At the time I researched and wrote this book, I was English Department chair at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, Calif. I have known Dave Smith since 1953.

The publisher, Devil Mountain Books, E-mail [email protected] , December 10, 1997

Brief Description of the Book
When David Smith opened the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic on June 7, 1967, he didn't know whether it would last the month, let alone the summer. Today, more than 25 years later, Dr. Dave oversees a budget of $8 million and a staff of 500 who meet the medical and social needs of approximately 50,000 patients a year. This is his story, an intense personal history with revelations that will probably surprise even many who know him.

"David's vision of so many years ago was both enlightened and prophetic. He clearly understands what is meant by the 'common good.'"

--Willie L. Brown, Mayor, San Francisco
"David Smith is a 'man of his time...a man who knows what he wants.'"

--The Rev. Cecil Williams, Glide Memorial Church, San Francisco - is also interviewed 

Dr. Dave
A Profile of David E. Smith, M.D.,
Founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics

By Clark Sturges who teaches English at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California. His other books are A Strategy for Writing, Witnesses, and Saying It Straight: Writing by Ordinary People

DEVIL MOUNTAIN BOOKS
Walnut Creek, California

Dr. Dave
A Profile of David E. Smith, M.D.,
Founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics
(c) 1993 by Clark S. Sturges

DEVIL MOUNTAIN BOOKS, P.O. BOX 4115, WALNUT CREEK, CA 94596.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Designer: Wayne Gallup
Typesetter: Susan Garcia / Imagery Designs
Copy editor: Jackie Pels
Photo consultant: Bruce Millar
Typestyle: Palatino
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sturges, Clark.
Dr. Dave: A Profile of David E. Smith, M.D.,
Founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics / Clark S. Sturges.
p. cm. ISBN 0-915685-08-6

1. Smith, David E. (David Elvin), 1939- . 2. Physicians- California-Biography. 3. Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic.

I. Title.
R154.5519S88 1992
61O'.92-dc2O 92-54544

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