Paul L. Whitehead, MD
In Loving Memory
It has been a while since I last searched for an obituary for Dr. Whitehead, but admittedly I have done so. My mom sent me the link.
I was one of those troubled teens who received his attention for an hour (45 mins, haha) once a week for what seemed like an eternity. Little had I experienced, little did I know, eternity is a really long time.
I could share about our sessions working on model airplanes, playing mario bros, listening to music (he had a VERY serious audio system in his office), arm wrestling...and even my grilling him about court cases he was involved with as either a direct witness or as an expert witness.
I have so much more but I don't dare make this about me. He helped me. He really helped me a lot. My amazing wife and three beautiful, successful daughters are difinitive proof.
I have carried this for a very long time, and it gave me comfort then and it gives me comfort now. He said "if there is no afterlife, we won't be aware if it."
I sure hope there's an afterlife.
-M
My condolences go out to your family and friends upon the passing of your loved one. Let me tell you a bit about the connection I had with Dr. W.
In the mid 1980's my then teenage son was referred to him by his pediatrician Kenneth Fishler and nurse Mildred . When the troubled teen refused to go I became the patient. I needed guidance on dealing with the boy as well as his stepfather. To say that I was also depressed is an understatement.
Off and on over several years the kindly doctor agreed to see me on Wednesday evenings so that I didn't have to ask for time off at work. Occasionally those Wednesday evenings fell on the night before Thanksgiving. How kind of him to keep our scheduled appointments when he should have been home with his family.
Eventually I felt stronger and on my last appointment I jokingly said that we had to stop "seeing each other" on Wednesday nights. He gave a little chuckle and like the gentle person that he was nodded in agreement and smiled. After all of these years I still think of him on Thanksgiving eve.
Thank you so much for sharing Dr. W. with me and all of his other patients.
Words that come to mind when thinking of Paul are like a weather report—bright, clear, and calm. Bright as he rose rapidly and at a young age through the ranks of academe to become a physician and psychiatrist, then rose to the top of his profession as a professor and department chair. Clear as he became an administrator and an instigator of programs and ideas, who communicated thoughts wisely and well to make departments run and good ideas to evolve into good programs in service of mental health in Utah. Calm as he became the stabilizer of roiling minds of kids and parents beset with mental distress, and in great demand as a much sought-after practitioner. He was totally even-tempered and reassuring through organizations’ conundrums and patients’ crises. His subtle wit made us want to gather ‘round. He was a patron of and a performer of the arts, particularly the art of pipe organ playing, and delighted in bringing culture to his friends, enough so to build his own concert hall and fill it with his own renditions of Bach. Son Paul’s emulation of his father in choosing the same profession confirms for us the kind of doc he was and dad he was, and a thoroughly devoted companion to Marilyn as she was to him. Paul, you left our world better.
Paul will leave a hole in our hearts. He was such and integral part of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Utah. We will miss him professionally, and personally.