Earlie Francis

Earlie H. Francis III, M.D., recently joined Kline & Specter as the firm’s sixth doctor/attorney.

Dr. Francis, who graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in May 2008, previously held positions in a number of western Pennsylvania hospitals, where he worked as a practicing physician and also held academic and administrative posts.

After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Dr. Francis did a combined residency in emergency and internal medicine at Allegheny General Hospital, in Pittsburgh, from 1991-1996.

He was an admitting physician in the hospital’s Medical Technology Treatment Program as well as a clinical instructor in emergency medicine. Dr. Francis also served on the hospital’s Ethics Committee and in 2003 won its Mentor Award, given by the graduating emergency medicine class to the instructor who best personified the ideal emergency physician.

In 1998, he became assistant director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at St. Francis General Hospital in Lawrenceville, becoming director of the department two years later. While at St. Francis, he also served on the hospital’s Ethics Committee and its Executive Committee of the Medical Staff.

While in law school, Dr. Francis worked as a staff emergency doctor at Beaver Medical Center, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (St. Margaret) and at Allegheny Valley Hospital.

Dr. Francis earned an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Virginia. A Baltimore native, he attended elementary and high school at the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Md., where he was a member of the track and rifle teams.

Dr. Francis has many hobbies but one true passion – Japanese martial arts. He is a black belt and instructor in the art of aiki jujutsu. He had quit jujutsu after suffering a serious injury in college, but took up the art again in medical school on the advice of one of his professors.

“He said something to me that I’ve lived by ever since,” said Dr. Francis. “He said, ‘If you take away too much of what you love, you may or may not live longer, but it will certainly feel like longer.”