From Cuba to Chicago
Internist recalls path to medical heights
By Scott Warner
He was 12-years-old when he fled Cuba’s communist regime with his family, taking with him only “three pairs of pants and three shirts.” Peter Eupierre, MD, recalls the year, 1966, when his father, Daniel, a businessman in the town of Santa Clara, Cuba, had watched helplessly as the Castro regime confiscated his thriving export business. The senior Eupierre packed up his wife Anna and young Peter and hopped on a Pan American flight from Havana to Miami. They stayed briefly among the Cuban exiles, then left for Chicago where they had family. The Eupierres settled in Logan Square, where Mr. Eupierre reestablished himself and provided a secure environment for his family.
While Dr. Eupierre doesn’t recall any particular inspiration to go into medicine, he said that even as a child, he knew he wanted to become a doctor. And he has flourished in his chosen profession. Today, Dr. Eupierre has given the proverbial shirt off his back countless times, not only to his patients, but also to the medical profession. And he couldn’t be happier.
An internist, Dr. Eupierre says he relishes taking care of his mostly elderly patients in his private practice in Melrose Park, but has also engaged in a lion’s share of organized medicine, as he helps guide the destiny of his physician colleagues. You name it, he has done it, serving as president of the Chicago Medical Society and the Illinois State Medical Society, board chair of ISMS, and president of the medical staff at Resurrection Westlake Hospital. He presently serves as a trustee, and secretary-treasurer of ISMIE Mutual Insurance Company, and is chair of the Illinois Delegation to the AMA. And that’s just a few of his activities.
His reasons for undertaking such major roles? “I got into this by accident,” Dr. Eupierre recalls. “In the early 1990s I belonged to what was then the Aux Plaines Branch of CMS (now District 5). He said he enjoyed the meetings, and the networking with physicians from other hospitals. “Our speakers were often legislators, and we were able to engage them about the issues facing health care. It came as a surprise to me when someone nominated me for president of the branch, and I was elected.”
After that, Dr. Eupierre began regularly attending CMS Council meetings and found even greater satisfaction. “I met physicians from all over—academic, hospital employed, solo practitioner—we exchanged ideas face-to-face, and it gave me a feeling of family or community.”
His peers embraced him, and had him move up the ranks in virtually all the organizations he was involved in; they found his leadership style compelling. “I look at everything that’s being discussed, then listen to others, and will often change my mind. I like to find common ground, and bring everyone to a consensus. The longer people know me, they see me as some kind of elder statesman, and it’s easier to get them to agree.”
Dr. Eupierre says he laments the intrusion of government in the practice of medicine, and he wants physicians to be able to practice medicine without so much interference. “This is key to my involvement,” he says. “My hope is that more physicians join our societies. Lawmakers look at these numbers, and if we participate and oppose them, they will listen.”
In the meantime, Dr. Eupierre does the listening when his patients speak. His own married children and grandchildren are central in his life. He has two sons, a daughter and seven grandchildren. He enjoys traveling with his wife Carolina, a pharmaceutical representative, sampling fine wines, and “trying every new restaurant that opens.”
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