Dr. Mark Hill – The Surgeon, Professor and Teacher, Public Servant, Veteran and Leader of a Great Rock Band, Puts His Endless Supply of Passion into a Productive Life of Service
“Were You Productive Today?”
Bert Hill, Mark’s father
Meeting Dr. Mark Hill, your first impression is likely to be, “WOW, this guy is intense.” However, the longer you are with him and the more you get to know him, you come to realize that this is a man who is actually calm, confident and at peace with himself, after 40 years of making split-second, life-saving decisions as one of the most prominent surgeons on the North Shore.
“Typically, when people describe me, patients as well, the first words they use are intense,” Dr. Hill said. And, I know I’m intense. But the second word they use to describe me is inquisitive. I’ve always been
inquisitive.”
Dr. Hill gives so much credit for being able to use his boundless energy and donate so much of his time in Highland Park to his lovely wife Carol Sue. The Oklahoma native and American Airlines flight attendant is the perfect match for the busy doctor.
“I am the luckiest man in the world as I got the best woman on the planet to marry me,” he said.
Hill may possibly be best known in Highland Park for his band, Dr. Mark and the Sutures, which has graced stages for 35 years, performing free concerts every year in Highland Park featuring many of his favorite songs by The Beatles. While Hill and his band always perform pro bono, they have performed at Allstate Arena, Taste of Chicago, Ravinia Festival and Country Thunder; and have opened for Tim McGraw, Randy Travis and Martina McBride. With his musical ability and diverse skills, Hill has also performed with The Highland Park Strings, and with the late Victor Aitay, Concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The band performs at fundraisers, benefits, community and service organizations over the Chicagoland area.
His civic and community service, including with the band and for his educational and civic activities has garnered him four Mayoral Proclamations with Keys to the City and named days from:
- Mayor Ray Geraci
- Mayor Michael Belsky
- Mayor Nancy Rotering
- Galena Mayor Terry Renner (Hill owns a country home in Galena)
In addition to performing 35 years of free concerts in Highland Park and the Chicagoland area, Dr. Hill organized, and his band performed, for Benefit Concerts for Tsunami Relief, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Relief, and Haiti Earthquake Relief. He also coordinated and organized Highland Park High School’s Students Who Care, put on by the students of the high school for Hurricane Katrina and Rita Relief where Dr. Hill personally provided all the sound equipment for their concert and also donated one of
his personal guitars for their raffle.
During his career, Dr. Hill has used his vast talents, skills and inquisitive nature to save lives, teach the doctors of tomorrow, enhance his community for everyone, especially children and the less fortunate. All the different awards he has received speak to his multifaceted interests and abilities, including:
2013 Coordinator of Warriors and Art—A Path to Healing at The Art Center Highland Park, the first of its kind national initiative that presented therapeutic veteran art to the public, nationally. Dr. Hill, a Navy Ensign, also arranged for representatives of every other branch of the US Armed Forces to be present in uniform, including Dr. Hill. Dr. Hill’s band also performed. Dr. Hill presented this to the Mayor and the Council.
- The 2012 Visionary Award from the Music Theatre Company for dedication to the arts
- The 2010 North Shore School District 112 Board of Education’s Community Education Award for Project Citizen (see below)
- The 2006 Robert Barnard Character Counts Pillar Award
- Organized and presented to the Highland Park Mayor and Council the first Smoke-Free Highland Park testimony, which resulted in Highland Park becoming the first city in Lake County to be smoke-free.
“Most important to me, because the question my father always asked me everyday was how I have been productive, how I have been productive for my community and the City of Highland Park,” Hill said. “My strong passion is channeled into giving back to the city and it is fueled by my intrinsic obligation for mentorship, (as my mentors made me what I am today) and making a difference. This includes my public service as a community resident.”
Ever since he came to Highland Park in 1982 after completing his surgical training, Hill has been constantly and increasingly involved in community service and mentoring opportunities on many different levels. Dr. Hill was an active member of the Board of Trustees of YEA Highland Park, founded by Mayor Geraci, which raised millions of dollars for HP Youth Education and Arts. Dr. Hill also organizes and annually performs for Misericordia Candy Days-Highland Park to help fundraising for Misericordia, where Dr. Hill has a child.
Another example of combined community service and service to kids, after initially buying his first home in Highland Park and after his own children started going to school, Dr. Hill, the research scientist, became interested in the ecology and topography of his neighborhood. Though now in his second home, Hill has always lived on a ravine. This led him to join the Natural Resources Commission (formerly the Lakefront Commission) where he has served as a member, former Chairman and Citizen Advisor for the last 30 years.
This led Highland Park Mayor Mike Belsky to appoint Hill as Highland Park’s representative to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, a position he is not remunerated for and that he pays his own expenses for. Founded by Chicago’s former Mayor, Richard M. Daley, the Initiative is a binational consortium of Mayors and representatives of cities in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin in the United States and Canada that deals with environmental, ecological and sustainability issues. It is typical for mayors to represent their city on this Initiative. Dr. Hill was chosen by Highland Park Mayor Mike Belsky due to his extensive work on behalf of Highland Park’s lakefront, and has held this post over 20 years and ongoing. Part of his responsibilities include making an annual presentation to the Mayor and City Council. As a result of his work on behalf of the city, Highland Park was honored with the 2015 Wege Small Cities Sustainability Best Practices Award from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities
Initiative. Highland Park is the only city in Illinois that has ever won this award and Hill was invited to give his presentation to the organization in Ontario, as well as to the Highland Park Mayor and Council.
While his children were at Elm Place School, Hill was appointed to former Governor Quinn’s $1 billion Clean Water Initiative to expand funding for wastewater and drinking water projects for Illinois communities. Hill arranged for Gov. Quinn to visit Highland Park where he helped Elm Place students place “No Dumping” stickers on the storm sewer grates, and he also held a press conference here that included the students. Later in his term, Quinn contacted Hill and another press conference was arranged with the Elm Place students to announce his bottle recycling bill.
“Children are so important to me,” Dr. Hill said. “Someone has to make a difference and be a role-model for these young people.”
Yearly, for more than 20 years, Hill has also volunteered to be the coordinator of the national program, Project Citizen, for Elm Place and Edgewood Schools. According to its website, “Project Citizen provides a practical, firsthand approach to learning about our complex system of government and how to monitor and influence it. The student’s project on Ravine Erosion was presented in Springfield to Governor Quinn and they were awarded the Blue Ribbon in the national competition, the first time any school in Illinois has ever achieved this.
Because of Dr. Hill’s bilateral efforts, the students were also invited to make a presentation to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative in Montreal on their Project Citizen-Monarch Butterfly Pledge.
With the success of his work on Project Citizen, Dr. Hill has given students an opportunity to participate in an annual “Simulated Legislative Hearing,” (which Dr. Hill arranges and coordinates) where students present publicly their project to the Mayor, the City Council, community leaders and legislative officials that they have also received written Commendations from, including Governor Pat Quinn, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, and Congressman Mark Kirk, as well as Mayoral Proclamations from Mayor Richard M. Daley, Toronto Mayor David Miller, Mayor John Dickert, and Mayor Tom Barrett.
For the last 39 years, Dr. Hill has lectured twice yearly to the AP Anatomy and Physiology, and AP Biology classes at Highland Park High School, and he has presented an annual career day on being a surgeon to Edgewood, Elm Place and Ravinia schools.
Dr. Hill is a Professor of Surgery at the Chicago Medical School where he regularly teaches medical students and residents. He also is a Professor of Surgery at the new Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he is developing the new surgical curriculum for the students. Dr. Hill is President and CEO of his medical practice corporation, North Shore Surgical Associates. He has been in practice on the North Shore for 40 years. Dr. Hill is the senior lecturer for Kaplan Surgical Board Review Courses (39 years), and is the Editor of the United States Medical Licensing Exam Textbook of Surgery. He is past President and on the Board of Trustees of the Lake County Medical Society where for 39 years he has been the Liaison to the Lake County Bar Association, organizing yearly combined meetings between the physicians, judges, lawyers and legislators to promote good will. These are the only combined medical and Bar association meetings in the country.
For many years, Dr. Hill has freely shared his medical expertise on the radio pro bono. He had for many years a daily broadcast on FM Radio’s US 99.5 called House Calls with Dr. Mark, and he still has a longrunning radio show called Clinicians Roundtable on XM Radio where he interviews well-known physicians. Among the many luminaries he has brought to the airwaves are Dr. Harley Liker, the medical consultant for the TV show House and the oncologist who took care of Lance Armstrong.
Most recently, he has been a Medical Consultant for the Lake County Health Department and he volunteered to administer vaccines as part of their ongoing effort that has provided more than one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Lake County residents. He will be volunteering for the entire month of January, providing his surgical help to a community hospital in crisis in Michigan.
“When my grandfather came here from England, he was uneducated,” Dr. Hill said, “so his favorite book was the Encyclopedia, because if he had a question, he could look up the answer. As far back as I can remember, he would say to me, ‘Mark, you have a mouth, ask questions!’ And that has always stuck with me.
Then, my father always used to say to me, ‘Mark, you must always know why the sky is blue.’ So, that told me I should always know the why behind the what in whatever I was doing in anything. And by the way, all of my medical students and residents (and my children) know that I always say you have to know why the sky is blue and when they ask me what that means, I tell them you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
Dr. Hill’s father (a well-known professional guitarist) was also his first mentor, mixing life lessons with music lessons as he charted his path for development.
“When I was finishing up high school, all of my friends were going to college. At that time, all I really wanted was to go into rock & roll,” Dr. Hill recalled. “But I kept wondering what’s this college all about?And then I, being very curious and inquisitive, I asked my high school counselor if I could just see what college would be like. The next thing I knew, I was on my way to the school they picked for me, which was Miami University of Ohio.
When I got there, I had no idea what I was going to do, so again I sat down with a counselor and asked them, what am I majoring in? I’m not sure if they looked at my ACT scores or something like that, but they told me I was going to be a chemistry major.
Right away, after meeting my second mentor, Professor Ronald Pfohl, I started working in his laboratory doing biology research. And so after two years, Professor Pfohl came up to me in his laboratory, and he said, ‘Mark, you like people and you like science. Why don’t you go into medicine?’
Hill graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in Chemistry and an A.B. in Zoology. Hill was a Rhodes Scholar Semifinalist, and the founder and first President of their pre-med honor society, Miami M.E.D., which stood for Medical Education Development. Back then, I never thought it would continue, but it’s still going strong today. The University regularly asks me to speak to the pre med students at the Miami M.E.D. meetings and also am asked by the University to speak on leadership.”
As an undergrad student, Dr. Hill did research every summer and actually published his first paper, on oral cancer, at the age of 18. The school and his parents agreed that he could travel to Las Vegas to present the paper at this first conference, even though he was under 21 and couldn’t get into the casino.
Upon college graduation, Dr. Hill earned a fellowship at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory on Cape Cod. The institution is the world’s leading, independent, non-profit organization dedicated to research, exploration and education.
“I went right from Oxford, OH to the location on Cape Cod where the movie Jaws was filmed,” he said. “And the great thing about that was, in addition to doing research and publishing there, I met several Nobel Laureates, and so again, I was like a sponge.”
After that, Dr. Hill returned back to Chicago to start medical school at Northwestern University where he graduated with distinction and was third in his class, also serving then and today as class representative.
“I graduated six months early,” he said, “and during the summer, even though I was working as a wedding singer (he paid his way through college and medical school by doing this), I wanted to do more research. So, from 1974 until I began my internship in 1977, I was a Medical Associate and Research Fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the place where Fauci works, and at Bethesda Naval Hospital (now Walter Reed Military Medical Center). Both are in Bethesda, MD. However, in order to have hospital and Pentagon access, which I had to have, I needed to be a Commissioned Naval Officer, so in 1974, I became an Ensign in the US Navy. I went through a program called the Commissioned Officers Training Program. In 1981, I was honorably discharged.”
After that, Dr. Hill did his surgery internship at Harvard Medical School, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and then did his surgery residency at Harvard Medical School, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he completed all of his training in surgery. He then returned to Chicago.
“When I moved back to Chicago, I joined my third mentor, Dr. Irving F. Stein, Jr. who was an exceedingly well-known and respected surgeon in the area,” Dr. Hill said.
Stein, who was in practice in Highland Park for more than 45 years and was Chief of Surgery at Highland Park Hospital, also was the Director of the Surgical and Training Program at Cook County Hospital for more than 30 years.
Dr. Hill said, “When I finished my chief residency, I thought I knew everything about surgery. Then, when I joined Dr. Stein, I realized I didn’t know anything. I mean, I knew it in my head, but I really didn’t know “how” to be a surgeon. Thankfully, Dr. Stein mentored me on everything – such as surgical technique and bedside manners. People today watch Grey’s Anatomy and think that’s surgery, but it was quite different years ago (i.e. Marcus Welby, M.D.)
I know in a way I am a dinosaur,” Dr. Hill said. “I was always taught, No. 1, to look at the big picture, the overall aspect of the patient, not just the surgical aspect, but the overall aspect. And, No. 2, I was taught very well by my third mentor, Dr. Stein, to have compassionate and sensitive interpersonal relations. What I am not pleased about is that medicine has become so fragmented that many are not looking at the “big” picture. I always tell my medical students and residents to look at the big picture and don’t always say “that’s not my specialty.” Because patients need to trust you and they need you to validate what they’re doing.
The second thing is you cannot frighten a patient. Your presentation must be gentle. So, I teach my medical students and residents that at the end of my conversation with a patient, I will always tell them that if I were your relative, this is what I would advise you to do. Just like if you bring your car in to get fixed and they tell you everything about everything, but you know really little about it. In other words, I believe in informed consent education, but gently! As doctors, we have to advise patients on what we think is the best approach.
And that brings me to my third thing, the importance of sensitive and compassionate interpersonal relations. My late partner, Dr. Stein, would take me aside quietly and say, Mark, you should approach the patient this way. That is the relationship of trust. Dr. Stein always used to say trust is something that you have to develop and earn. He was a wonderful mentor and like a father to me. Every single patient I’ve ever had in my 40 years of practice, will be able to tell you that I will always be there. I will always be available. I will always tell you what I think. And I will always have compassion for your sensitivity and guide you in the right direction. And I still make house-calls!”