At the beginning of his medical career, Dr. Angelo P. Creticos specialized in cardiology and endocrinology.
By the end of his 55-year tenure as a Chicago physician and medical administrator, Dr. Creticos had touched the lives of hundreds of working-class patients, instituted widespread preventive cancer screenings, upgraded the field of podiatry and spearheaded a five-year project to develop a cure for diabetes.
Though he retired from medical practice in 2000, Dr. Creticos continued working full-time as medical director of Union Health Service, a health maintenance organization that serves more than 40,000 union members in Illinois.
Soft-spoken and gentle, Dr. Creticos was known for his compassion and devotion to improving patient care, said Joe Garrett, executive director of Union Health Service.
“Dr. Creticos changed me,” said Garrett. “He was the type of person who would investigate every single complaint and follow up with a letter to the patient.”
“He impressed everyone with his commitment to patient service,” said Garrett.
In recognition of his work, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center dedicated the Creticos Cancer Center in 1997 and established an endowment and visiting professorship in his name.
Dr. Creticos, 89, of Wilmette, died Monday of respiratory heart failure at Illinois Masonic Medical Center, said his son, Peter.
He was born and raised in Charleston, S.C. He received his bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston and then attended Medical College of South Carolina where he earned his medical degree in 1946.
After medical school, he moved to Chicago for his medical residency at University of Chicago-Billings Hospital.
In the 1960s, he served as chief of medicine and medical director of the now-defunct George & Anna Portes Cancer Prevention Center. There, he instituted multiphasic screening, which simultaneously uses multiple lab tests for the detection of various diseases, and spearheaded cancer screenings. Under Dr. Creticos’ leadership, the Portes Center became the most comprehensive clinic of its kind.
During this time, he was also on staff at Henrotin Hospital, where he eventually became the medical director and director of medical education. He established himself as being on the forefront of preventive care by developing the Henrotin Health & Fitness Testing Center.
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His concern with patient care led to work with the nursing committee for the Illinois State Medical Society in the 1960s in helping to create and adopt the state’s associate’s degree in nursing.
When Henrotin Hospital closed in the 1980s, Dr. Creticos became a founding board member and president of the Washington Square Health Foundation, which provides grants for community health initiatives. The foundation provided funding for the diabetes project.
In the late 1980s, Dr. Creticos became affiliated with Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he held various positions including director of podiatric services, director of professional affairs and subsequently vice chairman of the Department of Medicine.
Among his most significant achievements was forging a partnership between Illinois Masonic Medical Center and the Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine that transformed Scholl’s podiatric curriculum to more closely resemble a medical school model.
He also pushed to change the name of the degree from chiropody to doctor of podiatric medicine. The changes led to hospitals amending their staff by-laws to allow podiatrists to become members of a hospital’s professional staff.
In 1987, he was named medical director of Union Health Service, which cares for union members, many of whom are janitors. For his patients there, Dr. Creticos established comprehensive cancer screenings and instituted electronic medical records.
“He was very proud of his work at Union Health Service,” his son said. “It encompassed two things that were important to him: patient care and innovation.”
But he expressed frustration with increasing government regulations, saying they were driving up hospital costs and hurting patient care.
In a 1988 Tribune opinion piece, Dr. Creticos wrote:
“The rate of increase of the cost of health care has slowed but the cost continues to climb; yet the number of dollars available for patient care is less. It is a fallacy to believe that both quality and quantity of health care are not reduced as a result of this intervention into the practice of medicine by government agencies, by industry and by all the various health management schemes. This is not to say that some regulations are not needed, but how many?”
His wife, Anastasia, died in 2006.
In addition to his son, He is survived by two daughters, Catherine Poulos and Helen Theodoropoulos; and eight grandchildren.
Visitation is scheduled for Friday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Smith-Corcoran Funeral Home, 6150 N. Cicero Ave. in Chicago. Visitation continues at 9:30 a.m. Saturday until a 10 a.m. service at Saints Peter & Paul Greek Orthodox Church, 1401 Wagner Road, in Glenview.