Skip Woodward helped this child walk after surgery to correct hip flexion contractures. Before the surgery, the boy, who suffered from polio, could move only by crawling. (Photo courtesy of Skip Woodward)
by Mike Rostad
The Kodiak Daily Mirror
For a man who isn’t interested in movies, Skip Woodward sure has known a lot of movie stars, among them Elizabeth Taylor, Maureen O’Hara, Howard Hughes and singer Nat King Cole.
His relationship with them was strictly business. They were his clients when he was a physical therapist at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., in the early 1970s.
Skip retired five years ago as manager of the Providence hysical therapy department in Kodiak, but he still keeps his therapeutical hands moving. He likes to travel to other parts of the world to bring therapy to the less fortunate. Since 1999 he has made seven trips to Cambodia, volunteering for charitable organizations such as Children’s Surgical Center.
Skip worked with victims of acid attacks in cases of infidelity, property disputes, acts of vengeance and other abuses.
These patients badly needed therapy to prevent contractures — a permanent shortening of the muscles and tissues — and to loosen limbs.
“They couldn’t raise their arms or turn their heads. We would get them to exercise.”
Skip and other volunteers also provided wound care.
“I saw how poor people are, how much they appreciated the treatment they were getting,”
He took his last trip to Cambodia in February 2010.
During one of his early visits to Cambodia, Skip agreed to provide treatment to a 3-year-old boy brought to him by Rebecca (Foster) Jones, another Kodiak volunteer at an orphanage in Cambodia.
The boy was unable to walk and he was covered with scabies.
“All kids had scabies at the orphanage. After evaluating him, we determined that he had been neglected. The child hadn’t gone through the normal stages of development.”
Skip demonstrated some exercises with Jones so she could help the boy progress.
“The last I heard the kid was doing things that kids of his age would normally be doing.”
Stories like these make him want to go back to Cambodia.
Skip likes helping people. Initially he wanted to become a medical doctor, much to the disappointment of his father, who was a civil engineer.
Skip attended Washington State University Pullman in the pre-med program, but after losing an eye in a car accident during his senior year, he changed his major to physical therapy.
He enrolled in the physical therapy school at the University of Southern California, graduating with a master’s degree in 1963. He had the distinction of being the first student to graduate with a 4.0 grade average. His father let him know how proud he was of that achievement.
Skip’s first job was at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. He and his classmates rented an apartment in Hollywood, where they lived across the pool from Eva Six, Hungarian bombshell of the beach bikini movies of the 1960s.
The apartment was infested with bed bugs, so Skip moved to Malibu, closer to Santa Monica.
“I lived across the street from Mary Tyler Moore. The Bridges (Lloyd, his wife and sons, Beau and Jeff) lived two doors down from us.”
Skip’s relationship with these neighbors was limited to a friendly “hi,” or a brief conversation at best. The Bridges boys washed Skip’s car once in a while.
His patients at St. John’s were big Hollywood stars at the time.
Although most of his clients were polite but reticent, Nat King Cole was very personable, Skip said.
“He would sing the Olympia beer commercial. He was a real nice man, more personable than many of the others.
“His family had their Christmas party in our therapy department. His daughter, Natalie, was just a toddler.”
Howard Hughes, in his 60s when he was treated at St. John’s, came incognito. “I didn’t know who he was until he was gone. He was very strange, standoffish. He looked like a street person.”
Elizabeth Taylor was “very nice, polite, real quiet, not very talkative.”
When Skip went into private practice in the San Fernando Valley, he made housecalls to Taylor’s father in Bel Air.
“He was real dapper man. An Englishman. A real nice man.”
Often the famous dancer/actress Ginger Rogers was in the home, visiting Taylor’s mother over a cup of coffee and rolls.
Skip also made visits to Patrick Wayne, son of John Wayne, the famous star of Westerns.
“He got us box seats at Dodgers Games.”
In 1967 Skip married Diane Hain, a nurse for an orthopedic doctor he had known.The Woodwards moved to Spokane, where Skip started a private practice. In 1972 Skip and his family moved to New Zealand.
“It had something to do with fishing,” he smiled. But it also had something to do with his career. For two years he worked in a hospital. He was the first American physical therapist to be licensed in New Zealand.
When the Woodwards came back to the states, Skip went to work with a friend in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
In 1981 his wife, their 14-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter were killed in a car accident while on the way to southern California to visit her folks.
Leaving his private practice in Coeur d’Alene, Skip went back to New Zealand in 1987 to fill in as a locum tenens. The fishing and the friends he had made there during his last stint could help him through those dark, lonely days.
En route to that country he came on an ad seeking for a physical therapist at the Kodiak Island Hospital. He cut the ad out and stuffed it in his billfold for the time being.
After spending three years in New Zealand, Skip went to Los Angeles to work with a classmate.
Skip wanted to leave Los Angeles for an environment that was less congested, healthier and more spacious. He took that Kodiak Island Hospital ad out of his billfold and dialed the number on the paper. He came up for an interview and by January of 1991 he was on the hospital staff.
At a hospital Christmas party Skip met Vicki Nelson, a teacher at East Elementary. Eventually they married.
As manager of the Providence physical therapy department and the only therapist on staff, Skip worked out of a small room, putting in long hours, seven days a week.
“I couldn’t go on vacation; I didn’t have a replacement.”
He agreed to take a job in Ketchikan. Four days before his scheduled departure from Kodiak, Skip got a call from Richard Rozadilla, a therapist in California, asking if there was a position available at the hospital.
Skip told Richard that he was leaving and he’d be on his own.
“He said, ‘Don’t leave, I’m coming up there.’” Skip decided to stay.
He and Richard worked as a team at Providence’s new physical therapy headquarters next to Mongolian Barbecue.
After retiring from Providence, Skip went back into private practice, performing nerve conduction studies and electromyography, testing nerves and muscles.
When Vicki retires the Woodwards would like to spend an extended time in Cambodia.
“She could teach English and I could do physical therapy work,” Skip said.
The Kodiak Daily Mirror
For a man who isn’t interested in movies, Skip Woodward sure has known a lot of movie stars, among them Elizabeth Taylor, Maureen O’Hara, Howard Hughes and singer Nat King Cole.
His relationship with them was strictly business. They were his clients when he was a physical therapist at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., in the early 1970s.
Skip retired five years ago as manager of the Providence hysical therapy department in Kodiak, but he still keeps his therapeutical hands moving. He likes to travel to other parts of the world to bring therapy to the less fortunate. Since 1999 he has made seven trips to Cambodia, volunteering for charitable organizations such as Children’s Surgical Center.
Skip worked with victims of acid attacks in cases of infidelity, property disputes, acts of vengeance and other abuses.
These patients badly needed therapy to prevent contractures — a permanent shortening of the muscles and tissues — and to loosen limbs.
“They couldn’t raise their arms or turn their heads. We would get them to exercise.”
Skip and other volunteers also provided wound care.
“I saw how poor people are, how much they appreciated the treatment they were getting,”
He took his last trip to Cambodia in February 2010.
During one of his early visits to Cambodia, Skip agreed to provide treatment to a 3-year-old boy brought to him by Rebecca (Foster) Jones, another Kodiak volunteer at an orphanage in Cambodia.
The boy was unable to walk and he was covered with scabies.
“All kids had scabies at the orphanage. After evaluating him, we determined that he had been neglected. The child hadn’t gone through the normal stages of development.”
Skip demonstrated some exercises with Jones so she could help the boy progress.
“The last I heard the kid was doing things that kids of his age would normally be doing.”
Stories like these make him want to go back to Cambodia.
Skip likes helping people. Initially he wanted to become a medical doctor, much to the disappointment of his father, who was a civil engineer.
Skip attended Washington State University Pullman in the pre-med program, but after losing an eye in a car accident during his senior year, he changed his major to physical therapy.
He enrolled in the physical therapy school at the University of Southern California, graduating with a master’s degree in 1963. He had the distinction of being the first student to graduate with a 4.0 grade average. His father let him know how proud he was of that achievement.
Skip’s first job was at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. He and his classmates rented an apartment in Hollywood, where they lived across the pool from Eva Six, Hungarian bombshell of the beach bikini movies of the 1960s.
The apartment was infested with bed bugs, so Skip moved to Malibu, closer to Santa Monica.
“I lived across the street from Mary Tyler Moore. The Bridges (Lloyd, his wife and sons, Beau and Jeff) lived two doors down from us.”
Skip’s relationship with these neighbors was limited to a friendly “hi,” or a brief conversation at best. The Bridges boys washed Skip’s car once in a while.
His patients at St. John’s were big Hollywood stars at the time.
Although most of his clients were polite but reticent, Nat King Cole was very personable, Skip said.
“He would sing the Olympia beer commercial. He was a real nice man, more personable than many of the others.
“His family had their Christmas party in our therapy department. His daughter, Natalie, was just a toddler.”
Howard Hughes, in his 60s when he was treated at St. John’s, came incognito. “I didn’t know who he was until he was gone. He was very strange, standoffish. He looked like a street person.”
Elizabeth Taylor was “very nice, polite, real quiet, not very talkative.”
When Skip went into private practice in the San Fernando Valley, he made housecalls to Taylor’s father in Bel Air.
“He was real dapper man. An Englishman. A real nice man.”
Often the famous dancer/actress Ginger Rogers was in the home, visiting Taylor’s mother over a cup of coffee and rolls.
Skip also made visits to Patrick Wayne, son of John Wayne, the famous star of Westerns.
“He got us box seats at Dodgers Games.”
In 1967 Skip married Diane Hain, a nurse for an orthopedic doctor he had known.The Woodwards moved to Spokane, where Skip started a private practice. In 1972 Skip and his family moved to New Zealand.
“It had something to do with fishing,” he smiled. But it also had something to do with his career. For two years he worked in a hospital. He was the first American physical therapist to be licensed in New Zealand.
When the Woodwards came back to the states, Skip went to work with a friend in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
In 1981 his wife, their 14-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter were killed in a car accident while on the way to southern California to visit her folks.
Leaving his private practice in Coeur d’Alene, Skip went back to New Zealand in 1987 to fill in as a locum tenens. The fishing and the friends he had made there during his last stint could help him through those dark, lonely days.
En route to that country he came on an ad seeking for a physical therapist at the Kodiak Island Hospital. He cut the ad out and stuffed it in his billfold for the time being.
After spending three years in New Zealand, Skip went to Los Angeles to work with a classmate.
Skip wanted to leave Los Angeles for an environment that was less congested, healthier and more spacious. He took that Kodiak Island Hospital ad out of his billfold and dialed the number on the paper. He came up for an interview and by January of 1991 he was on the hospital staff.
At a hospital Christmas party Skip met Vicki Nelson, a teacher at East Elementary. Eventually they married.
As manager of the Providence physical therapy department and the only therapist on staff, Skip worked out of a small room, putting in long hours, seven days a week.
“I couldn’t go on vacation; I didn’t have a replacement.”
He agreed to take a job in Ketchikan. Four days before his scheduled departure from Kodiak, Skip got a call from Richard Rozadilla, a therapist in California, asking if there was a position available at the hospital.
Skip told Richard that he was leaving and he’d be on his own.
“He said, ‘Don’t leave, I’m coming up there.’” Skip decided to stay.
He and Richard worked as a team at Providence’s new physical therapy headquarters next to Mongolian Barbecue.
After retiring from Providence, Skip went back into private practice, performing nerve conduction studies and electromyography, testing nerves and muscles.
When Vicki retires the Woodwards would like to spend an extended time in Cambodia.
“She could teach English and I could do physical therapy work,” Skip said.
1 comment:
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