A doctor in Newport Beach, California was fatally shot by an elderly patient in his exam room on Monday. The doctor, identified as Dr. Ronald Gilbert by the Daily Pilot, was a urologist at Orange Coast Urology.
Police were called to the Hoag Health Center around 2:45 p.m. upon hearing six to seven gunshots on the second floor of the building. Officers found the doctor with several bullet wounds to his upper torso and was pronounced dead at the scene. They found the suspect in the same room and took him into custody. Police said in a press release that the incident seemed to be isolated and does not represent a public threat to safety.
The building includes several medical offices and clinics. Becky Calderwood, who works two doors down from the scene of the crime heard the gunshots.
“I sit right at the front desk; I would have caught the first bullet,” she said. This is nuts; people are just shooting everyone all the time.”
Gilbert lived in Huntington Beach, was married and had two children. He was a graduate of UCI Medical School and once served as chief of Hoag Hospital’s urology department and as an assistant clinical professor of urology at UCI.