Roll Call Tribute

Published in Houston Chronicle from Nov. 13 to Nov. 17, 2013

Mavis Parrott Kelsey M.D. Sr.
Mavis Parrott Kelsey, Sr., M.D. was born 7 October 1912 and died peacefully and surrounded by his family at home on Tuesday, 12 November 2013. Mavis was a devoted family man, physician, World War II veteran, collector of art and Americana, writer, editor, publisher, rancher, genealogist, and philanthropist. He was a keen observer, a critical thinker, a visionary leader, and a life long scholar. He grew up in Deport, Texas, where he developed his insatiable curiosity and a creative mind. Mavis was inspired to seek a career in medicine by his grandfather, Dr. Joseph Benson Kelsey, who brought him along on house calls in a horse drawn buggy. Mavis graduated from Texas A&M and the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston. After an internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York, he returned to the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston as an Instructor in Pathology.
The following year he became a junior staff member at the Scott and White Clinic. There he met the love of his life, Mary Randolph Wilson, of Beaumont. To Mavis, Mary was a lovely Southern girl with a refined intellect and polished social graces. She had degrees from Vassar and George Washington, had lived and studied in Paris, and had worked in Manhattan. She read in Italian and Spanish. She was fluent in French, and she had not forgotten her Latin. On average she read several books a week, and like Mavis, she remembered almost everything she read. Also like Mavis, Mary found it easy to speak her mind.
After an elegant wedding in Beaumont, Mavis took his bride off to Rochester, Minnesota, and took a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. During World War II, he served as Flight Surgeon of the XI Air Corps Fighter Command in Alaska, and later, while at the Aeromedical Research Laboratory at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, as Editor-in-Chief of the Air Surgeon's Bulletin, the medical journal of the U.S. Air Force. He attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was awarded the Legion of Merit. After the War, he finished his fellowship and became a staff member of the Mayo Clinic. He also earned a master's degree in medicine from the University of Minnesota.
In 1949, he brought his family, which by then included four sons, back to Texas and within two years started what became the Kelsey Seybold Clinic. Among his early partners were Drs. Bill Seybold, Bill Leary, his brother John R. Kelsey, Earl Beard, Alfred Leiser and Jim Kemper. He led the clinic in the development of branch clinics, prepaid medical care, and occupational medicine. He initiated and directed the Clinic's relationship with NASA, which led to other larger scale patient groups. He pioneered nuclear medicine, the use of paramedical personnel and electronic patient records. He performed early research on the clinical use of radioisotopes, and he published some fifty medical articles. He especially enjoyed his affiliation with St. Luke's Hospital. Mavis loved his practice as a personal family doctor, and he was renowned as an endocrinologist. He founded the Kelsey Research Foundation which has been supported by many grateful patients and collaborating hospitals, and which has made several important contributions to medical research in the Medical Center.
Mavis was a retired Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas where he was once Dean of the School of Post Graduate Medicine. He served on the staff of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital where a lectureship in the Section of Endocrinology is named in his honor. He was an Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Baylor Medical College. He enjoyed membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha and Sigma XI honor societies. He was a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a Board Certified Internist, a Certified Flight Surgeon and an FAA Examiner. He was a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas A&M University and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Apart from the practice of medicine and into his nineties, Mavis actively supported the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston where he served on the Executive Committee and the Prints Committee, the Texas A&M University Press, the Texas A&M University Health Science Center, the Texas A&M University Institute of Biology and Technology, and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He was a member of the Philosophical Society of Texas, the Sons of the American Revolution, and charter member of the American Historical Print Collectors Society. He was an active member of St. Martin's Episcopal Church.
When Mavis became interested in a subject he usually became an expert and sometimes wrote a book about it. He liked Winslow Homer's woodcuts and collected almost all of them. After completing the collection he gave it to the MFAH and with Mary as his co-author, he wrote Winslow Homer Graphics. He later gave most of the remainder of his collection, including some 20,000 books, prints and other art to Texas A&M. David Chapman, the Mavis & Mary Kelsey Professor and University Archivist at Texas A&M has written, "The Kelsey collection is broad and diverse, almost defying description. The Kelsey collections are a living testament to the lives of two devoted and generous people. It is and always will be a treasure for the ages." Mavis also helped with the restoration of the Cushing Library at Texas A&M where the main reading room is named in his and Mary's honor.
Mavis wrote or co-authored Physiology of Flight; A Guide to the Courthouses of Texas; Engraved Prints of Texas; A Cookbook, by the Kelsey Family and Friends, his autobiography, Twentieth Century Doctor, and Texas Sayings and Folklore, which was published on his 100th birthday. Mary and Mavis were fifth generation Texans and co-authored seven genealogy books. They spent many hours in the Clayton Genealogy Library where the Dr. Mavis Kelsey Acquisition Fund is named in his honor.
Mavis & Mary loved their ranch on the Katy Prairie and once owned a fine herd of Charolais crossbred cattle. They knew most of the cows and bulls by name, and they visited Charolais breeders in France. They could identify most of the native grasses and shrubs on the prairie and the plants in their gardens at home. Mary knew the Latin names, and Mavis knew the botanical classifications. The Kelseys were awarded the Zone Conservation Commendation by the Garden Club of America. Mavis and Mary loved to travel and visited most of the world's great cities. Mary kept wonderful travel journals, which Mavis later incorporated into a book for the family.
Mavis kept up with current events and medical developments maintaining subscriptions to medical and scientific journals until his last days. He would annotate and underline clippings and pages from newspapers, magazines and books and mail copies to friends and family often with encouraging advice.
He was a delightful conversationalist. Even after becoming a centenarian he took a sincere and kindhearted interest in the activities of friends and family of all ages. His memory for past events, places he had visited, friends, and his vast store of knowledge was legendary. Mavis was imbued with an indefatigable joy for life. He recently joked in an interview that the secret to his longevity was drinking good whiskey. Not mentioned: his extraordinary determination, persistence and discipline; an unusually broad range of interests; and a profound sense of integrity and duty.
Mavis was predeceased by his wife, Mary; his parents, John Roger Kelsey, Sr. and Bonita Parrott Kelsey; his son, Cooke; his brother Dr. John R. Kelsey, Jr.; his sister Virginia and her husband Marvin Gibbs of Paris, Texas. He is survived by three sons and their families: John, and wife Gaye; Tom, and wife Ann; and Mavis Jr., and wife Wendy. Grandchildren: Kelly, and step grandson, Dan Weigel; William, and his wife, Laura; Margaret, and her husband, Dr. Greg Connor; Mavis III; Winifred, and her husband, Carleton Riser; and Cooke. Great Grandchildren: Wilson and Carter Kelsey; Patrick, Clara and Thomas Connor; Robert, Mac and Carleton Riser. Sisters-in-law: Mickey Kelsey and Callie Wilson. Nieces and nephews: John R. Kelsey III, Ann Naber, Robert Kelsey, Virginia Kelsey, Dr. Kelsey Gibbs, Nancy Scanlan, Jamie Griffith, Wilson Griffith, Mary Griffith Wallace, Richard Griffith, Cooke Wilson III, Margaret Wilson Reckling; numerous cousins; his assistants, Rebecca Ayers and Christina Hand; and devoted friends and caregivers, Mary Patino, Emelina Cruz, Federico Shotte, Jamarcus Wright and Jose Chavez.
Honorary Pallbearers are Earl Beard, Gervais Bell, Spencer Bertelson, Earl Brewer, Herbert DuPont, Donald Dyal, Alfred Glassell III, Tony Greisenger, Jim Kemper, Meredith Long, David Mouton, Michael Newmark, Mike Stude, and the doctors and staff of the Kelsey Seybold Clinic.
A memorial service will be held at three o'clock in the afternoon, Monday, the 18th of November, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, 717 Sage Road in Houston. There will be a reception after the service in the Parish Hall of the Church.
Memorials may be sent to The Kelsey Research Foundation, 5615 Kirby Dr., Ste. 660, Houston, TX, 77005; St. Martin's Episcopal Church, 1717 Sage Rd., Houston, TX, 77056; or the charity of one's choice .

Geo. H. Lewis & Sons
www.geohlewis.com, 713.789.3005
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From yoursugarlandnews.com (with color photo)

Kelsey-Seybold Clinic founder Mavis P. Kelsey dies
From Kelsey-Seybold Clinic | Posted: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 2:34 pm

Physicians, staff and patients at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic today are mourning the loss of their founder, doctor and friend, Mavis P. Kelsey, M.D., who passed away this morning. Colleagues and doctors worldwide are remembering Dr. Kelsey as a medical pioneer who brought the collaborative healthcare model to the Houston area more than 60 years ago when he founded Kelsey-Seybold Clinic.

“Dr. Kelsey was a true visionary and creative thinker who founded and developed a premier medical group that combines family and internal medicine with the highly focused expertise of specialists in all medical fields,” said Spencer Berthelsen, M.D., chairman of Kelsey-Seybold’s board of directors. “His strong belief in a coordinated approach, grounded in a wellness-based philosophy, has enabled Kelsey-Seybold to provide a very high level of quality and efficient care to patients since day one. Beyond being a brilliant physician, Dr. Kelsey was a caring and kind friend to the Kelsey-Seybold family of employees and many other people in his life. Without question, Dr. Kelsey is among Houston’s most influential physicians leaving behind his legacy as a physician, pioneer, leader and mentor.

”Dr. Kelsey honed his medical skills and embraced the idea of the collaborative care model at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He returned to his native Texas in 1948, bringing with him a bold dream to create a “Mayo Clinic of the Southwest,” and founded Kelsey-Seybold Clinic the next year. Keeping pace with greater Houston’s fast-growing population, Kelsey-Seybold grew quickly and today serves more than 400,000 patients at 20 locations. The clinic’s 415 providers collaboratively practice in more than 55 medical specialties.

Kelsey-Seybold brought innovative ideas to the medical field and pioneered ‘company medicine,’ plans that provide health care for workers. In 1966, Kelsey-Seybold was selected to serve the medical needs of National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA) employees. Throughout Kelsey-Seybold’s association with NASA, the clinic contributed medical support services to the Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and Space Shuttle programs. In addition to providing onsite medical services at Houston’s Johnson Space Center and the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, Kelsey-Seybold also provides medical care to all NASA-affiliated personnel in Moscow.

Recruiting top-quality physicians and staff was always a high priority of Kelsey-Seybold’s leaders. “Other clinics came and went, but I think the reason that we survived was because we kept up our quality, and we kept up loyalty and dedication to that sole purpose of delivering medical care,” Dr. Kelsey once said.

In 1985, Dr. Kelsey retired from Kelsey-Seybold after 37 years of practice in Houston, but he continued to keep up with medical advancements and remained actively involved with many interests, hobbies and philanthropy.

Dr. Kelsey chronicled his medical career in one of several books he authored, Twentieth-Century Doctor; House Calls to Space Medicine, published in 1999. The Texas A&M University Press described the book as, “quintessentially the story of how medicine developed from a single-doctor, home-visit practice to the mega-business, high-tech system it now is, especially in urban areas.

”For his 100th birthday, Dr. Kelsey published Texas Sayings and Folklore, a collection of metaphors, axioms and proverbs unique to Texas as well as personal stories of his growing up in East Texas. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle in 2012, Dr. Kelsey remarked: “You know what a vanity book is? It’s something somebody prints for vain purposes. That’s what this is for my 100th birthday.”

“The announcement that Dr. Kelsey retired was a formality because he continued to remain involved and influenced innovation at Kelsey-Seybold,” said Dr. Berthelsen. “Even recently, Dr. Kelsey continued to read medical journals. He was also very interested in new ideas and emerging technologies that could improve healthcare delivery and patient outcomes; however, he always reminded everyone of the importance of the personal relationship between physician and patient.”

Reflecting on his career in an April 2009 radio interview, Dr. Kelsey said, “I think the most enjoyable, the most gratifying part of my whole career was seeing patients.”

The grandson of a physician, Mavis Parrot Kelsey, Sr., was born in Deport, Texas, in 1912. Although Deport had no electricity, water or sewers until the mid-1920s, Dr. Kelsey credits these early hardships with giving him the “toughness” to persevere during the hard times in his life and career. Two great, great uncles, who were both doctors in the Confederate Army, and his family doctor, were role models and mentors, but it was his grandfather, Dr. J.B. Kelsey, who truly inspired young Mavis. At a young age, Dr. Kelsey accompanied his grandfather on many house calls and by age 10, he knew he wanted a career in medicine. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Texas A&M College in 1932 and a Doctor of Medicine degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in 1936. Dr. Kelsey interned at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital after which he served for a year as instructor of pathology at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. From 1938 to 1939, he served on the junior staff of Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas.

In 1939, Dr. Kelsey married Galveston native Mary Randolph Wilson and accepted a three-year fellowship in internal medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. While at Mayo Clinic, he strengthened friendships with future partners, Drs. William D. Seybold and William V. Leary. World War II interrupted Dr. Kelsey’s medical training, and he served in the U.S. Army Air Force Medical Corps from 1941 to 1945. After the war, Dr. Kelsey completed his residency at Mayo Clinic, receiving a Master of Science degree in Internal Medicine from the University of Minnesota, Mayo Foundation in 1947. He was appointed to the Mayo Clinic Staff as an Instructor in Medicine of the Mayo Foundation in the University of Minnesota.

A fifth-generation Texan, Dr. Kelsey had a dream of establishing “a Mayo Clinic of the Southwest” here in the Bayou City. In that model, general physicians worked hand-in-hand with consulting specialists as a seamless medical team. He founded a practice in the Texas Medical Center in 1949. That same year, Dr. Kelsey also became a staff member at what was then a new hospital called M.D. Anderson, where he set up the isotope lab and gave the first dose of radioactive iodine in Houston to treat thyroid cancer. The following year, Dr. Kelsey encouraged two former Mayo Clinic colleagues, Drs. Seybold and Leary, to consider the prospect of establishing a clinic in Houston. In 1951, the three doctors opened the Kelsey-Leary-Seybold Clinic in the Hermann Professional Building. Dr. Kelsey’s practice was in the field of internal medicine with an emphasis on endocrinology. Eventually, other physicians, including Dr. Kelsey’s brother, Dr. John R. Kelsey, joined the group practice. When Dr. Leary left the practice to join M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1965, the practice was renamed Kelsey-Seybold Clinic.

Dr. Kelsey was appointed dean of the UT Postgraduate School of Medicine, which is now the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the UT Health Science Center. Mary also became involved first hand with UT when she served from 1978 to 1987 on the development board of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; she was board president from 1980 to 1982. To honor her leadership, in 1983 the development board established the Mary Wilson Kelsey Professorship in Medical Sciences.

At Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Dr. Kelsey not only actively practiced medicine but was the Chief of the Department of Occupational Medicine and directed a number of medical contracts for NASA and the U.S. Navy. Dr. Kelsey also established the Kelsey Research Foundation, which fosters the advancement of medicine by sponsoring medical research and education and has funded hundreds of projects in the Texas Medical Center over the past 50-plus years.

Dr. Kelsey held many teaching and administrative posts throughout his career. While medicine was an important part of Dr. Kelsey’s life, he was also actively involved in countless professional organizations, social activities, hobbies and interests. His talents and passions, both professionally and privately, led to numerous books, lectures, contributions, donations and personal involvement to many causes, organizations, institutions and museums.

Dr. Kelsey was honored in many ways over the years, including being named a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas A&M University and an Ashbel Smith Distinguished Alumnus of The University of Texas Medical School in Galveston.

As one of the original members of the early endocrinology staff at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Kelsey was honored before a lecture named for him was delivered at M.D. Anderson. The Kelsey Research Foundation sponsored the lecture on geriatric cancer care, presented by Harvey Jay Cohen, M.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center.

In May 2009, Dr. Kelsey was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award during the Houston Business Journal’s first Health Care Heroes luncheon, part of the publication’s four-day CelebrateEnterprise program of business events.