Dick almost didn’t finish his training at UCSF. The Chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine in the late 1960’s, Lloyd Hollingsworth “Holly” Smith, kicked him out of his residency for his political activities – while a resident he had taken charge of the medical care for the students who were on strike for months at San Francisco State College, who were routinely tear gassed and beaten by the San Francisco Police. Dick recruited fellow doctors like his friend Morrie Schambelan, as well as SFGH nurses, to take care of the injured students and Holly disapproved of mingling medicine and politics. To Dick his conscience wouldn’t let him stand by and let such massive injustice happen.
Another high-ranking faculty doctor, Elliot Rappaport, a well-respected cardiologist, advised Holly that this idealistic young doctor was exactly the kind of physician that San Francisco General needed, and Holly reluctantly reinstated him.
In 2008, John Dittmer interviewed Dick for the book, The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care. Dick passed along his knowledge of the MCHR role in the Bay Area.
In 1966, as Dick was beginning his internship, he had been persuaded by psychiatrist Dr. Phil Shapiro to work with the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Medical Committee for Human Rights.
In fall 1968, when violence broke out at San Francisco State University after students went on strike, Fine was in charge of the medical presence on campus. “Every day at twelve o’clock we would come to San Francisco State for the riot,” he recalled. A good friend, professional photographer Ed Holcomb, risked injury to himself and his cameras to photograph the strike, focusing on the volunteer doctors and nurses, who were themselves targeted for violence by the police. The unique images are in the University Archives, Dr. Richard H. Fine SF State Strike Medical Committee for Human Rights Photograph Collection in the Library at San Francisco State University.
In early 1969, after the SF State Strike ended, he traveled to Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, where he worked with a group including the Tijerina brothers, Maria Varela and other local organizers, who were establishing a locally created and controlled health center, ultimately named La Clinica del Pueblo de Rio Arriba, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019.
On November 20, 1969, a group of American Indians occupied the abandoned federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, which they held for 18 months. Dick Fine made a weekly trip to bring medical supplies to the island on the “official” ferryboat and remained to treat patients for minor injuries, colds and pneumonia.
In 1970, Dick helped establish the Black Man’s Free Clinic with Dr. Bert Small and the Black Panther Party in Oakland, and recruited physicians and nurses from San Francisco General Hospital to volunteer there.