The Paton Award is given in honor of Dr. William Paton, MD an Orthopedic surgeon with the Alaska Native Tribal Consortium. In 2022, AHHA established a new category of recognition in his honor, the Paton Award. This award will recognize physicians with 40 years or greater of medical service to Alaska residents.
Dr. William “Bill” Bell has provided care across the Homer community for more than four decades where he remains an active member of the Medical Staff at South Peninsula Hospital, serving as the Medical Director for Long Term Care, Employee Health, and Infection Prevention.
Originally from Claremont, California, Dr. Bell obtained a BS in Biological Science from Stanford and attended medical school at the University of Washington, spending time in Fairbanks, Homer, and Anchorage as part of the first cohort permitted to spend entire academic years in Alaska.
While in family practice residency at the University of Oregon Health Science Center, Dr. Bell visited Homer often and, in 1981, he and his wife, Mary Lou Kelsey, moved to Homer full-time. Together, they provided the community with full-spectrum family medicine. Mary Lou worked as a labor and delivery nurse, and later became a midwife. She served the community for 35 years before retiring in 2017.
During one of the major renovations to South Peninsula Hospital, Dr. Bell and Mary Lou opened a birth center. They assisted with 25 deliveries, staying up around the clock to provide a supportive environment for women in labor. By the time they “grew tired of cleaning toilets at two in the morning,” Dr. Bell recalls, the hospital renovations were complete, and they moved back into the facility. As a physician, Dr. Bell’s scope spanned from the clinic to the emergency department to inpatient hospital coverage. “It was family medicine… we did it all,” he remembers.
Throughout his career, Dr. Bell has received a number of awards and recognitions - In medical school, he became a member of the esteemed Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical national honor society. He won a Physician of the Year award in 2004, and the George Longenbaugh EMS award twice. He also served on the Governor’s Midwifery Council and received the Homer Citizen of the Year award.
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