Dr. Scott Benninghoven is hanging up his scalpel after 35 years of transforming lives in the operating rooms of Saint Louise Regional Hospital, leaving behind a legacy of healing that has touched thousands in South County and beyond.
“It is strange to look back. It’s sort of hard to put into words,” Benninghoven said, reflecting on his tenure. “You work, you enjoy doing what you’re doing. I’m proud of all of the patients I have taken care of. That is the whole reason why I ever did what I did, which is making people better.”
A self-described “California kid,” Benninghoven was born in Walnut Creek, grew up in Sacramento, and received his education at Jesuit High School, UC Berkeley, and USC before settling in Morgan Hill in 1990. He and his wife raised their son in the community while he divided his time between what was then Saint Louise Regional Hospital (now DePaul Health Center) and South Valley Hospital, which is now SLRH in Gilroy.
“I came to town and thoroughly enjoyed the people I worked with, the patients I took care of,” he said. “I also worked at covering shifts in San Jose, and that gave me exposure to what ‘Big City Medicine’ was about.
“I think that being in a small community and taking care of the people that you know makes a difference in why I enjoyed being a surgeon. I could see the effect that I had on people, and making people better is the reason to do what I did. It really was a personal connection.”
As a general surgeon in a small community, Benninghoven’s practice evolved differently than his counterparts in larger cities, handling a wider variety of procedures that would normally be performed by specialists in a larger medical facility.
“I did things like pacemakers, which is not typically a part of general surgery,” he said. “It’s important to provide that service to the community because there wasn’t a specialist cardiologist that did pacemakers early on when we first came into town.
“That is what I enjoyed, and why I went into general surgery, is the variety of doing various things and not doing the same thing every day.”
Benninghoven takes particular pride in his competence with laparoscopic gallbladder removals, he said. He was an early adopter of laparoscopic surgeries in general, which are easier on patients by being less invasive than traditional methods.
“I think I am a very competent general surgeon when it comes to these surgeries,” he said. “Sometimes it is very easy and the surgeries are very straightforward, and other times they can be pretty complex, and the reason why I enjoy doing that surgery is because I feel like I can provide a level of care that is very beneficial to the patients.”
Now retired since January and living in Grass Valley with his wife, Benninghoven is embracing new passions: building things, gardening and preparing for extended travel. After performing nearly a surgery a day on average for the last three decades, he is looking forward to making up for lost time.
“We’re going to go to Europe for a few weeks,” he said. “To Ireland and Italy and Wales. These are a couple of different trips that we have wanted to do for a while, so we’re sort of putting them all together into one four-week trip.”
Looking back on his career, Benninghoven served twice as chief of staff and takes pride in the physicians’ collaborative efforts to maintain a safe hospital environment.
“Leaving behind a hospital that is a well-functioning and safe facility that the Santa Clara County has invested in and continues to invest in with new equipment and services,” he said. “I know that the hospital is going to last another 35 years.”
What gives him the greatest satisfaction is the mutual appreciation between doctor and patient.
“My patients over the years have always expressed gratitude for what I have done for them,” Benninghoven said. “I enjoy what I do and I hope that came across to them over the years. I care about them, and I can see that they care about me in return. That is the thing that I am most proud of.
“All of the people that I have helped over the years, and have made, if not 12,000, maybe 10,000 of their lives quite a bit better.”
