Steve DeAngeles ’84

Most people know Steve DeAngeles ’84 as a doctor, but he’s also an inventor with three patents. And he’s on the cutting edge of a medical trend. Ten years ago he became the first doctor in Illinois to drop insurance companies and adopt a cash-only practice, converting his Chicago internal medicine practice completely in 2006. Now he sees 20 percent of his patients for free, and the others pay set fees. “Why have Medicare pay for billionaires’ health?” he says. “Patients like it better, I’m happier. And as a doctor, you can give as much pro bono care as you want.” In his spare time he’s keeping the planet green. “I had a patient who needed a pacemaker. I explained that when his heart rate goes below 60 it kicks in,” he recalls. “After work I was driving by a wind farm on a bright sunny day and none were spinning. I thought, ‘Why not put a pacemaker on a windmill’?” He figured out how to do that, and holds three patents. The DeAngeles family is wonderfully Cornell-centric. Steve and his wife, Sallie Marotta DeAngeles ’86, have raised three daughters (see picture). His father is Robert DeAngeles ’58, a dentist in Melrose Park, Ill., and his brother is David DeAngeles ’85 (Shawn Krueger ’87), a surgeon in Madison.