David Hilton

News Obituary Article

CLARKSTON: David Hilton, doctor taught empowerment while serving

By KAY POWELL

Dr. David Hilton embodied the missionary doctor.

The body is conditioned by the spirit, Dr. Hilton taught his Emory University students. He wanted people to assume responsibility for their own health rather than be dependent on doctors.

In a broader reach, he taught students to empower communities to take control of their own health care, said Dr. Stan Foster of Sautee, a professor at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health.

Many health workers go into a community thinking they have all the answers, Dr. Foster said. "David taught students to go out and listen and facilitate communities to identify and solve their own problems."

Dr. Hilton put his beliefs into practice in Nigeria, with the Seminole Indians in Florida, globally with the World Council of Church's Christian Medical Commission and at Emory. There he was a chaplain, taught spirituality and health in the medical school and taught health as social justice in Emory's School of Public Health, Dr. Foster said.

"Whenever I had David teach a class, he never lectured," Dr. Foster said. "He posed a question and broke the class into small groups to wrestle with the question."

Dr. Hilton, 76, died of complications from non-Hodgkins lymphoma July 27 at his Clarkston residence. The body was donated to Emory University School of Medicine. The memorial service is at 3 p.m. Sunday at Oakhurst Baptist Church.

His philosophy guided Emory's first-year medical and public health students through what is for most their first encounter with a dead body.

As a chaplain, he accompanied them to the anatomy lab for their first dissection and made them feel comfortable discussing spiritual matters, said the Rev. Bridgette Young of Atlanta, associate dean of the chapel and religious life.

Dr. Hilton put the dissections into perspective. "He told the students that these people who donated their bodies are giving them a great gift. They are teachers for these students," the Rev. Young said.

"He helped them better than anyone else helped them," said Jim Cooper of Emory's body donor program.

A Bangladeshi student e-mailed Dr. Foster that Dr. Hilton was a man of compassion who understood the needs of the poor. "The way he inspired students about the importance of community participation and empowerment, it's simply extraordinary, not common."

When Dr. Hilton left Nigeria, he did not leave his Christian mission, his medicine nor his flying. "Here he had a flight simulator on his computer," said his wife, Laveta Hilton. "He enjoyed it every day. He continued to fly, just not in the air."

With his flight simulator, he could fly any kind of airplane and land it anywhere in the world, Dr. Foster said. "One day, he came in to my office and announced, 'I just crashed a 747 into the Atlanta airport yesterday.' "

Survivors other than his wife include two daughters, Carol Brody of Lawrenceville and Ann Metts of Sugar Hill; a son, Ben Hilton, of Norcross; a brother, Don Hilton, of Hereford, Texas; and one granddaughter.

© 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution