David Richard Theil

Beloved husband, father, brother, uncle, cousin, doctor and friend to many, David Richard Theil of Evergreen, CO summitted his last peak on 16 May 2022 with his family and friends by his side after a recurrence of pancreatic cancer.

Dave was born on 15 May 1958, to Patricia Ellen (Turner) and Richard Kenneth Theil in Beech Grove, IN. Dave is survived by his wife, Patricia (Patti) Johnson Theil; son, Samuel David Theil; daughter, Jacqueline (Jackie) Marjorie Theil; his sister and brother-in-law, Terri Lynn Theil and Jeffrey Vernon Johns and their children: Justin,Jeremy, Tricia; and numerous cousins, nieces and nephews; and his loyal companion, Sadie.

Dave grew up playing sports as his father had been both a baseball and basketball coach for Southport High School in Indianapolis. Dave, however, had an affinity for football and he excelled as quarterback. After his freshman year at Southport, the school was split and Dave was forced to attend the rival new school, Perry Meridian High School (PMHS). Dave soon became the starting quarterback after an injury sidelined the upperclassman. He was recognized with All-County and All-State Quarterback awards. Dave still holds two records at his high school: Most wins for a single starting quarterback and Highest one season winning percentage going 9-1 in 1975 when the school was still in its infancy.

Also in the Fall of 1975, Dave first met his future wife when they sat next to each other in ES Physics. She was a junior and he was a senior. They immediately became friends,often studying together, but would not begin to date seriously for another six years. Dave attended Indiana University, and while there was selected to go to their Medical School after his junior year, hence he had no undergraduate degree. This fact was not well known except by his family who teased him regularly. The program allowed for him to apply first year medical school credits to his undergraduate degree, but even afterwards, he was still shy of three arts and humanities credits. Dave graduated medical school at Indiana on his 25th birthday in 1983. Three weeks later, after marrying Patti, they headed to North Carolina to start his internship at UNC Chapel Hill Memorial Hospital. After a short lived internal medicine career, Dave became involved in high altitude research at Duke University which eventually led to an Anesthesiology Residency at Duke. Upon completion he went on staff at Duke before coming to work at Rose Medical Center in 1991.

Dave’s fascination in high altitude research stemmed from his interest in climbing. He was an avid mountaineer and successfully climbed Aconcagua, McKinley (twice) and Kilimanjaro (twice) as well as many lower altitude mountains and 14ers in Colorado. Dave loved learning so he took many courses in the outdoors including those with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). He completed their instructor course and at one point planned on instructing a few times a year. Of course this was before having children.

Dave’s love of the mountains initially drew them to Colorado. Both he and Patti loved to ski. Patti and Dave would have celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary on June 4th. Dave’s pride and joy was their two children, Samuel and Jackie. They all spent countless hours together skiing and made Copper Mountain a second home. Daveloved having his family close. He introduced his kids to hiking, climbing, camping and golfing, though Jackie cared little for golf. As an avid learner, Dave wanted to travel and teach his children about other cultures and to see other parts of the world and expand their thinking. Dave became involved with a surgical team that went annually to Tanzania. His passion grew for this group and he started going twice a year, and sometimes brought his wife and children to assist. Ultimately this led to the formation of One World Medical Relief, a nonprofit that he cared deeply about.

Dave was an outstanding physician and anesthesiologist. He was a 5280 TOP DOC for over a decade. He was selected to Chair the Anesthesia Department at Rose Medical Center in 1996. He remained in that position until April of this year. He was an integral part of Rose and HealthONE (HCA). He actively assisted with so many programs and projects at Rose that his name often was synonymous with the hospital. Dave led and designed the “time out process” at Rose to reduce diversion activity and help protect anesthesia providers, a process that is increasingly used in other HCA facilities. He was integral in setting up clinical IT solutions and working with Pharmacy at the Divisional level for medication transparency. He leveraged his passion of leadership development to assist HCA with creating the Physician Leadership Academy and his people focus to assist with blood drive campaigns, breastfeeding education, and wellness (one of his favorite topics). He spearheaded, with others in HCA, integrating health and wellness into their mission including serving as the physician sponsor for the Health and Wellness Center at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s. Dave was involved with an active pain clinic where he enjoyed building a relationship with his patients. Lastly Dave also made countless unpaid housecalls taking care of neighbors, friends and especially their children.

Dave was a board member with Greater Colorado Anesthesia (GCA) when the group joined US Anesthesia Partners and remained on the board through the integration of South Denver Anesthesiologists (SDA). Dave was compelled to continue improving his leadership abilities. He attended the Kellogg Leadership Program at Northwestern University. He became the Service Committee Chair in 2017, was passionate about developing their hospital Site Chiefs through creation of curriculum for recurring Site Chief Retreats. Dave believed in everyone around him and was expressive about opportunities for Physician leaders to learn skills not taught in medical school such as business acumen, awareness of EQ, composure during critical conversations, and USAP financial fundamentals, which he expanded into an Emerging Leader program. Through those efforts, the USAP-Colorado Leadership Development Committee (LDC) was bornand Dave was named as the committee Chair. That group has since created a formal Mentorship Program, Path to Partnership, and New and Future Leaders programs.

USAP Corporate identified Dave as a champion of leadership development and asked him to join in the evolution of the current Account Management Fellowship (AMF) taken by all Site Chiefs across USAP. He served in other leadership capacities across the practice including leading the USAP-Colorado Medication Task Force when health systems were low on medications across the Denver area.

Dave’s personal focus for his colleagues was resiliency. He befriended Dr. Amit Sood of the Mayo Clinic who authored several books including the Handbook of Happiness. Dave asked Dr. Sood to host an event for USAP-Colorado several years back; the Burnout and Resiliency Workshop was well received by the Clinicians and MSO staff. He wanted everyone across the practice to have the opportunity to choose happiness and have the tool kit to achieve it. At this year’s Annual USAP Leadership Conference in Denver, and with 400 attendees from across the country, Dave was presented with the first ever Clinical Leadership Development Award. This award will be given annually at this national USAP event and has now been named the “Dr. Dave Theil Clinical Leadership Development Award” for all future recipients.

If you spent time with Dave, he would share the potential he saw in you and had a way of sharing all the tips he used to keep himself motivated. He was quoted saying “I am not in competition with others, I am trying to just be a better version of myself than I was yesterday.”

While preparing for a trek to Pakistan with Sam and Jackie, Dave was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018. He spent time assembling a team of world class doctors to be a part of his own care team. He prepared mentally for his treatment and often spoke about how important his resiliency training was throughout the process. He was deemed in remission for several years before it was discovered the cancer had returned in December 2021.

Last year, while fighting his cancer, Dave had the desire to keep pushing himself with learning and leadership by getting his master’s degree from Duke University where he had trained 30+ years before. It was a family affair, as he did it with his two children Sam and Jackie. WRAL, the Raleigh TV station did a news story and interview with Dave and his family which can be googled. Dave also did a Project Purple Podcast on survival.

There will soon be another Dr. Theil. Dave’s and Patti’s daughter Jackie, was just accepted to Creighton University School of Medicine. They had an opportunity to visit the school in April. Dave struggled but was able to go on the tour of the school and see where his daughter would be studying medicine.

The Celebration of Life will be held in Evergreen on June 18th. The service will be at Nick’s Pro Fitness at 12:30 PM, followed by the reception at the Wild Game. Patti and Dave spoke openly as to where any donation should be made in his honor in lieu of flowers and gifts. Should you feel compelled please donate to any of the following, see links below.