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HOUSTON (March 30, 2009)—Kelsey-Seybold Clinic launched its year-long 60th anniversary commemoration on March 30 with a National Doctors’ Day event honoring the more than 320 physicians who provide collaborative, coordinated care to patients throughout the greater Houston area.

Dr. Mavis P. Kelsey founded what is now Houston’s premier community-based physician group on March 15, 1949, when he opened his first office in the burgeoning Texas Medical Center. The grandson of a country doctor who made house calls via horse and buggy, Dr. Kelsey spent his formative years in medicine as a World War II flight surgeon and at Bellevue Hospital in New York, Scott & White in Central Texas, and the renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He returned to Texas in 1949 intent on building a multispecialty clinic in Houston.

The 96-year-old Dr. Kelsey was among the current and former physicians, staff, and patients who attended the Doctors’ Day event at Kelsey-Seybold’s Main Campus, 2727 West Holcombe.

“Dr. Kelsey built on what he learned at the innovative institutions where he worked as a young physician to pioneer the multispecialty group practice model in Houston,” said Dr. Spencer Berthelsen, chairman of the Board of Directors at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. “That vision remains the driving force behind Kelsey-Seybold today.”

The March 30 event launched a series of activities through which Kelsey-Seybold will celebrate its 60th anniversary and to say “thank you” to its 400,000 loyal patients:

• Kelsey-Seybold recognized the first baby delivered by a Kelsey-Seybold physician on March 15. Ariana Williams was delivered at 7:22 a.m. by Dr. Joseph A. Salinas of Kelsey-Seybold Clinic—Woman’s Center. Ariana was born to LaNeice Williams at The Woman’s Hospital of Texas.
• The Clinic will unveil a new multimedia micro-Web site, www.kelsey-seybold.com/60, that describes many memorable moments in the clinic’s history and provides details about a 60th Anniversary Essay Contest. The grand prize is an iPod and three $60 gift cards.
• Kelsey-Seybold will also sponsor a children’s art contest commemorating the 60th anniversary.

“We are very grateful to all of the physicians, employees, and patients who have made our first 60 years a success, and we look forward to the next 60,” Dr. Berthelsen said. “Going forward, Kelsey-Seybold’s core principles provide a model for the future of health care. America’s Health Insurance Plans says the keys to controlling cost and improving health care quality are emphasizing preventive care, improving continuity and quality, and providing medical homes for the chronically ill. This describes what Kelsey-Seybold does everyday.”