Accomplishments extend beyond medicine

The doctor started a tennis program for children in Israel.

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

WARREN — Two of the three most satisfying life accomplishments listed by Dr. William H. Lippy, one of the world’s foremost ear surgeons, have nothing to do with medicine.

“I was one of the founders of the Israel Tennis Center,” said Dr. Lippy.

The Israel Tennis Center is a free national program that uses tennis as a vehicle to improve the quality of kid’s lives.

“We have built 17 facilities and had over 400,000 children that have gone through the program,” said Dr. Lippy, who himself finds time to play tennis three or four times a week, despite working 16-hour days.

Another project, this one in the United States, was Jump Start America in 1992, a campaign he started that for a time, at least, helped reverse the trend of American carmakers’ losing market share to foreign manufacturers.

Jump Start America began with a memo to his employees saying he’d pay the first $600 for any car they bought that was made in America.

“I called friends with the same offer,” he said, and the idea grew into a national phenomenon.

“We were provided office space from Covelli Enterprises and soon had 75 volunteers working there. Within six weeks, with the help of my sons, David and Stephen, we had involved some 400,000 companies representing 15 million workers in the project,” Dr. Lippy said.

Worldwide publicity

With David working full time doing public relations for the project, every major television network came to town, as well as some from Europe and Japan, he said.

“The American share of the car market went up for the first time in years, proving that with a good idea and hard-working people, you can change the world a little bit,” Dr. Lippy said.

Dr. Lippy said his most important contribution to medicine was to debunk a study, which originated in 1939 in Germany, that determined that women with otosclerosis who got pregnant were more likely to suffer hearing loss than women with the condition who did not get pregnant. Otosclerosis is a disorder that causes progressive hearing loss.

Two years ago, after doing his own study, he published his findings refuting the German study.

“Now every doctor in the U.S. and the world knows not to discourage women with otosclerosis from having children. I consider that the epitome of my contributions to medicine,” Dr. Lippy said.

alcorn@vindy.com