Friends and neighbors: Dr. George Dietz still makes house calls

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013 10:00 PM

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Dietz enters a room at a home in Joliet to do a checkup on a stroke patient.

No trip is too far for Dietz, whose travels take him as far east as Northwest Indiana and as far south as Joliet. Here, he makes his way to a home on a snowy day.

Dr. George Dietz of Oak Park is 84 but works a full schedule that includes a practice and making house calls three days a week. He wears headphones that are attached to a device that amplifies his stethoscope.

Dietz reviews the file of a bed-bound patient in Chicago.

Dietz, on his third house call of the day with more than 100 miles on his car, calls in a prescription.

Dietz shakes hands with a caregiver after a house call in Chicago. In the same day, he made calls to homes in Chicago Heights and Richton Park.

Dietz adds to Paul Blakemore's file at the conclusion of a visit to his Chicago Heights home.

Dietz speaks with a care giver at the end of a visit. "I liked the way my father helped me when I was sick. I like helping people who are sick."

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By David Pierini

Staff Photographer

Dr. George Dietz, 82, never dreamed of a day when he might retire.

The Oak Park resident maintains a practice on Chicago's South Side and makes house calls three days a week, often driving more than 100 miles in a day to treat the bed-bound.

"Until God closes me out, I'm open for business," he told one of his patients, Mia Stevens, on a recent trip to her Richton Park home.

Dietz grew up in Detroit not knowing what he wanted to do but gravitated toward practicing medicine because of two people: his father and an old football coach.

"I liked how my dad helped me when I didn't feel good," Dietz said.

Toward the end of high school, he wrote an old coach and priest, asking him what he should do with his life. "He wrote back and said, 'Well, you did good in high school. Why don't you be a doctor?'

"That settled it."

Contact:
Email: david@oakpark.com

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Penny Ford from Denver

Posted: May 26th, 2013 1:09 AM

Dr. Dietz helped to deliver one of my children, now a 37 year old wife and mother. I was always impressed and bemused by the ways in which he answered all of my questions thoroughly and with kindness. Congratulations, George, on a choice wisely made and a life well spent.

Suzanne Vestuto from Oak Park

Posted: May 23rd, 2013 2:30 PM

You are amazing! What a fantastic testament to loving one's work & respecting your patients! Doctor, you are a model for us all!!!

Ann Liebler from Birmingham, MI

Posted: May 23rd, 2013 8:29 AM

What an example of a caregiver. I am very proud of my Uncle George! Great pictures.

Jennie from Oak Park

Posted: May 22nd, 2013 1:11 AM

what an Angel. thank you.

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