Citadel’s KGO-AM longtime host and Premiere Radio Networks-syndicated Dr. Dean Edell announced he’s retiring after more than three decades (1979). His last live show from San Francisco will be heard nationally 12/10 and will continue via syndication in reruns through the end of the year. Edell, who dubbed himself the hippie doctor, hosted a pioneering medical radio weekdays on KGO. His show was recently moved to weekends on the station. Reruns will continue to air from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Sundays.
“This is probably going to be the hardest show I’ve ever done in my life,” Edell, 69, said at the start of Wednesday’s show. “It kind of reminds me of a feeling I used to have going into an examining room and telling a patient that they had some terrible illness. This is nothing of that magnitude at all, but I feel uncomfortable.
A spring survey by Talkers ranked Edell as the 28th most-listened to talk show host in the country.
Until a few years ago, Edell regularly appeared on KGO-TV, too, contributing medical reports to news programs and doing longer-form shows. For a year in the early ‘90s, he hosted a 30-minute daytime show on NBC. He’s also done more than 15,000 “Medical Minutes” reports on air.
