By Danelle M. Taylor Johnston, MA, Managing Editor

Published in the spring 2024 ALUMNI JOURNAL

When Zachary Hill ’17 stepped into a Big Ten college football stadium in the fall of 2023, he was coming home.

Hill had just joined Sierra Pacific Orthopedics in Fresno, California, and become a Fresno State Bulldogs team physician. And while he was now on the sidelines helping to take care of the team, 15 years before he had been on the field as a Bulldog defensive back.

Son of former Bulldogs head coach Pat Hill, Hill has football in his blood. He played through high school and all four years of college.

But he had two passions. Football—and medicine.

He discovered his dream to become a doctor during his high school freshman year in biology class. His teacher, Matt Verhalen, challenged and intrigued him, making the human body fascinating, which enticed him to learn more about diseases and the human body.

He thought to himself, I’m good with people; I know how to work hard and put in long hours; I want to practice medicine!

But while Hill knew he wanted to be a physician, he had no idea how to get there. “There weren’t a lot of Division One football players who are going into pre-med,” Hill recalled.

Fortunately, his team’s head physician, Eric C. Hanson ’83,
who operated on Hill’s sports injuries twice while Hill was in college, stepped in and mentored Hill. “I always felt that Zak had the personality to be an orthopaedic surgeon and particularly a sports medicine doc,” Hanson remarked.

Juggling classes and playing college football was challenging, but Hill was driven by his passion for the sport and his passion to become a doctor. When Hill applied to medical schools, Hanson wrote Hill’s recommendation letter for Loma Linda University School of Medicine (LLUSM), the only medical school that gave Hill an interview.

Three weeks before orientation Hill still had not heard back from LLUSM, and he was losing hope. He set aside a day to redo all of his applications to apply again the following year and started the day early, working out at the gym to prepare for the task ahead.

While at the gym, he saw a call from the Loma Linda area code and excitedly answered the call.

“Do you still want to come to Loma Linda? We have an open position,” the LLUSM voice on the other end said.

“I started just crying. I was like, ‘Yes, yes, yes! I will be down there. I’ll be down there.’ I immediately drove to my girlfriend’s [now wife] apartment. It was early in the morning, and she was just getting out of bed. I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to be a doctor!’

“And she looked at me and her eyes got big and she was like, ‘Wait, what did you just say?’

“‘I’m going to Loma Linda!’ and she just jumped on me.”

A few weeks later he was on campus at the Alumni Association Freshman Welcome Party—the start of building his LLUSM community—where he met his roommate and soon-to-be best friend, Michael Diatte ’17.

Things ramped up quickly though. During the second week of classes, studying on campus late into the night, Hill had a panic attack. He started questioning if he could survive the grind of four years of medical school.

Overwhelmed, Hill went back and talked to his roommate Diatte. “We prayed together, and I just got strength from that. And I was like, no, this is where God wants me.”

One of the classes Hill loved was the pathophysiology class of Leonard S. Werner-fac, which emphasized critical thinking, analysis, and a deep understanding of human pathology, neatly echoing the high school biology class that awakened his passion for medicine.

When it came time to choose a specialty, Hill knew he wanted to do something with his hands, and the orthopaedic surgery rotation spoke to him.

“As a football player they would always say, ‘The tape never lies,’” Hill said. The same holds for orthopaedic surgery: “The X-rays never lie.” His high school love of anatomy still called to him. He loved “restoring anatomy, recreating anatomy, and getting someone up and moving, and restoring quality of life.”

This passion took him to residency in orthopaedic surgery at UC Davis Medical Center and to a fellowship at Emory University in sports medicine where he worked with team physicians for the Atlanta Falcons, the Atlanta Hawks, and Georgia Tech.

For Hill, starting work at Sierra Pacific Orthopedics and becoming a Fresno State football team physician, alongside Hanson, the very person who had operated on him, mentored him, and supported him, was an amazing experience. It “felt like this is the right place for me to be,” Hill said. When Hanson retired in December of 2023 after 33 years at Sierra Pacific Orthopedics, Hill also took over Hanson’s practice.

“Zak has had a remarkable start to his career,” Hanson said. “He connects beautifully with the student athletes, especially as a result of his background. He is a loving, caring physician, and has outstanding surgical skills. Zak is incredibly bright and not intimidated by significant surgical challenges. He also has a humility that is so important and often lacking in our profession.”

Having had two major surgeries himself while playing college football, Hill understands both the player’s perspective and the physician’s perspective: “Football is a game of passion. Sometimes that passion can put a player at risk because they want to fight through pain.

“I have to protect them.”

Hill is grateful for his LLUSM community, a vital part of his practice. He continues to stay connected with his medical school classmates, calling them weekly. He appreciates the passionate people he found at LLUSM who invest in their students and patients and that LLUSM is driven by compassion and “is not a place that just churns out doctors.”

This compassion drives Hill in his practice today. “I don’t think I would have gotten that if I didn’t go to Loma Linda.” 

Danelle M. Taylor Johnston, MA, is fascinated with the human voyage, documenting stories through writing and photography; and loves spending time in nature.