Dr. Jason Siy Burgos passed away at his home on Sept 22, 2022. He was 82 years old. Jason was born on April 9, 1940 in the town of Oas in the Albay Province of the Philippines. He was the 9th of 10 children, including seven brothers and two sisters. Education was very important to the family. Jason always wanted to be a doctor because there was little medical care available in his province.
Jason received his college degree and medical training in Manila, earning his M.D. degree at the University of Santo Tomas in 1965. After graduation, he came to the U.S. to begin his medical internship at Elyria Memorial Hospital in Elyria, Ohio. There, he met his wife, Gail Brite, a young nursing student. The medical interns and nursing students rotated through the different hospital departments for their training, and he and Gail were on the same rotation together. She loved how he was always in the OB ward visiting the newborn babies. Jason began his surgical residency at Youngstown Hospital Association in Youngstown, Ohio. He and Gail were married shortly thereafter in 1969. While in Youngstown, they welcomed their first child,Pamela.
Jason decided to continue his education in 1972 with a second residency, specializing in Otolaryngology (ENT) at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida. He started his residency in Miami just weeks before the birth of their second child, Tanya. In addition to his challenging residency schedule, he often moonlighted in the emergency room of other hospitals on weekends to earn extra money to send home to family in the Philippines. Jason excelled in his program and was named chief resident in his final year of residency.
After finishing his residency in 1975, Jason wanted to find an area that had a great need for an ENT doctor. He and the family moved to the small town of Mount Dora in Central Florida. He opened his private practice on the 3rd floor of Waterman Memorial Hospital in Eustis, Florida and later opened his own office nearby. Their third child, “little” Jason, was born in 1978.
Jason practiced as a physician for 30 years before his retirement in 2005. During that time, he became a beloved member of the local community. He was a respected surgeon and was well-known for removing the tonsils of multiple generations of children in the area. He was skilled in his craft, but he was most known by his patients for his kindness, sense of humor, and gentle bedside manner.
Always in the service of others, Jason’s true passion was returning to his home country of the Philippines to lead surgical mission trips with his close group of Filipino-American colleagues every year for 21 years. His special focus was performing cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries to improve the lives of countless children in the poorest villages of the Philippines. Closer to home, he was a co-founder of St. Luke’s Clinic at St. Mary’s Church in Eustis. He was also a regular volunteer at the Waterman Hospital Free Clinic.
Jason traveled the world and visited many wonderful places with Gail. He was an avid sports fan and enjoyed playing tennis, basketball, and golf with friends. His children have many fond memories of him singing Frank Sinatra songs, beating them at ping pong and Scrabble, dancing in the living room with Mom, gardening in the backyard among his many fruit trees, perfectly delivering the punchline of a good joke, and painting at his easel. His grandkids spent many hours in the kitchen with their Lolo – cooking key lime pie, bibingka, and pancit.
Jason is survived by Gail Burgos, his loving wife and partner for 53 years; his three children Pamela Young, Tanya Paulsen, and Jason P. Burgos; his five grandchildren Kelsey Young, Hailey Young, Caleb Young, Sophie Paulsen, and Ella Paulsen; his brother Don Burgos; his sister Violeta
Aguilar; and numerous nieces and nephews who loved him dearly.
A funeral mass will be held at St Patrick’s Church in Mount Dora on Friday, Oct. 7th at 9:00am, followed by a reception in the social hall.
