Former Shriners Hospital Patient Keeps on Rolling as Volunteer Driver

March 14, 2008

Los Angeles, CA – March 14, 2008 – Gordon J. Phillips, one of the valued volunteer van drivers at Shriners Hospitals for children in Los Angeles, recently came forward with his own Shriners Hospital experience that changed his life. Gordon was first admitted to the Portland Shriners hospital in April of 1933, at the age of five and was in and out of the hospital until the age of fifteen.

Physicians at the hospital began to treat his club foot condition, which his parents had been concerned about since birth. His first surgery in May of 1933 would begin a series of five surgeries that would span almost ten years and change his life drastically. Gordon would transform physically and carry the principles of Shriners with him. Gordon’s traveled four-hundred miles to Portland from his hometown of Caldwell, Idaho. The distance separated him from his five siblings during his extensive stays at the hospital necessary for his treatment. But this did not stop him, and he still believes the principles that he learned during his stays in 1930’s, as he says, “There is always someone worse off then you are.”

During his stays at the hospital doctors treated his bilateral club foot condition through surgery and bracing which allowed him to regain his mobility and freedom Gordon completed his medical care at the Portland Shriners Hospital for Children in December of 1943. As an adult Gordon decided to give back to the organization that had given him so much. He became a Shriner to give back to the community that had helped him. Since then he has been active in the Shrine organization and started volunteering at the Los Angeles Hospital in 2005; giving back to the organizations that had helped him so many years before. “It was always my goal when I got out (of the hospital) to join the Shriners,” Gordon said Tuesday, “I wish I could spend every day volunteering.”

As a volunteer, Shriners Hospital values Gordon’s experience. “It is always a pleasure to see one of our patients return and help us provide the same compassion and care to our current patients,” says volunteer coordinator Judith Lau, “We hope that by helping children and providing them with the best medical care possible, we are also touching their lives forever.” The medical treatment that Gordon received from Shriners as a child allows him to connect with our patients during their care. Gordon’s return to the hospital demonstrates this and we hope our patients will someday return to us at the hospital and touch children’s lives as volunteers, such as Gordon Phillips touched theirs.

The life changing compassion that the Shriners Children’s Hospital provided Gordon in 1933 has not changed, rather the medical care has advanced and the reach of the Shriners Hospitals has grown. Currently Shriners can reach thousands of children worldwide and provide them with state of the art medical care through twenty-two hospitals that stretch across North America, Canada, and Mexico. The chain of hospitals has hundreds of medical professionals that allow the Shriners organization to provide care for these children. As a volunteer Gordon has touched the lives of the children at the Shriners Hospital in Los Angeles, to put it in his words, “There is nothing more rewarding then seeing those kids come in there, missing an arm or leg, and being so care free and happy, you almost never see one cry.”