When David B. Wirthlin's career in health care began nearly four decades ago, gall bladder surgery patients spent up to two weeks in the hospital. Today, it's outpatient surgery. Open heart surgery patients were in the hospital for up to 16 days, a number that has dropped to three. Now, they can even outlive their own hearts.
He is retiring after 36 years on Utah's medical scene.Wirthlin has watched health care evolve and improve and, while he is not a clinician, his impact on Utah's health-care community has been immense. His legacy includes Life Flight and the shock-trauma critical care ICU at LDS Hospital, both developed during his administration there.
Wirthlin joined the LDS Church hospital system in 1963 after he received his master's of hospital administration degree from the University of Minnesota. Three years later, he was named assistant administrator at LDS Hospital. In 1973, he became administrator. When the LDS Church transferred its hospital holdings to Intermountain Health Care in 1975, he continued to serve as hospital administrator until 1985. He oversaw establishment of the critical care ICU and trauma program, Life Flight, InstaCare community clinics, vascular lab services, pulmonary lab, the hospital's computer information system and construction of the replacement wing of the hospital.
In 1985, he became regional vice president of IHC and in 1989 took a two-year leave to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More recently, he has been executive director of development for IHC and executive director of the LDS Hospital-Deseret Foundation and Cottonwood Alta View Health Care Foundation, where he directed fund-raising for medical research and education at LDS, Cottonwood and Alta View hospitals.
Wirthlin and his wife Anne have four daughters, two sons and eight grandchildren.