| The surprise celebration was a bit overwhelming | | | | Today, at age 90, Dr. Ozaki still works, getting up |
| for the 90-year-old doctor, a Downey pioneer | | | | each day to help Dr. Edelstein, a Downey eye |
| who came to the city almost 60 years ago as a | | | | physician. “I don’t have a practice any |
| young doctor eager to help his patients. But the | | | | more but I still keep my fingers in the medical |
| smile on his face when he walked in the | | | | arena by helping my fellow colleagues,” he |
| restaurant and looked around the room said it all. | | | | said. |
| Back in the 1950s, from his office on 3rd Street | | | | His work and his love of his rose garden seem to |
| in the city of Downey, Dr. Ozaki delivered babies, | | | | keep a twinkle in his eye. “I’d still be |
| tended to the old and infirmed and dedicated his | | | | seeing my patients if I could,” he added. |
| professional life to caring for hundreds of Downey | | | | “I miss them terribly.” |
| families. Ozaki attended Loma Linda University, | | | | It is not uncommon for Dr. Ozaki to be greeted |
| where he completed his medical education and | | | | by his former patients, or their children or grand |
| received formal training as a family doctor who | | | | children, all of whom he treated as a family |
| delivered almost all of the care to his patients. | | | | physician. |
| Each morning, he’d arrive at Downey Regional | | | | “He is an amazing doctor, the kind of doctor |
| Hospital to perform surgery and then spent up to | | | | whose spirit for caring for patients was |
| 10 hour days in his office seeing patients and | | | | contagious to all of us,” recalled Sheldon S. |
| finally returned to the hospital in the evening to | | | | Zinberg, MD, a long-time Downey physician who |
| care for and visit patients. | | | | founded CareMore and worked along side Dr. |
| He made house calls and treated countless | | | | Ozaki. “He never took a vacation or days off. |
| patients who did not have the money to pay him | | | | He committed his life to making sure his patients |
| or health insurance. | | | | were well and healthy. “ |
| “It was a time in healthcare when family | | | | Today, as he battles the aches and pains that |
| doctors like myself did everything in medicine for | | | | come with living to be age 90, he still can be |
| our patients, from delivering their babies to caring | | | | found on the computer in Dr. Edelstein’s |
| for their grandparents and doing surgery,” he | | | | office, researching new advances in medicine. |
| recalled. “If I fit the bill for an old fashioned | | | | “Medical science still amazes me, and it keeps |
| doctor, then so be it – that’s what I was | | | | my mind engaged,” he said. Sounds like just |
| and continued to be for decades.” | | | | what the doctor ordered. |