Once a Doctor, Always A Doctor - Time Out #246

The total economic stoppage of our great country was beyond mind-numbing for me. The effect of seeing still photos of our empty major cities, almost the complete absence of people, was such a weird thing for me to watch day after day after day. Our society's economic shut down, combined with "social distancing" personally gave me an abundance of time for deep thought and personal reflection. One of the many memories my solitary time helped me recall were my much earlier years, after I "officially" (was graduated) became a physician. The viral pandemic caused my mind's eye to roll back about 45 years ago! The location is downtown Oklahoma City's Civic Center Auditorium, early June, 1974, the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine's graduation exercises for my class of 135 students. As my name was read and I walked across the front stage, Dr. Robert Bird, our medical college dean, placed my doctor's hood on me, shook my hand, and welcomed me into our honored profession. It was truly a surreal moment in time for this local boy who grew up in Our Town! So, my journey as a "real doctor" began the next month via a rotating internship, along with 8 other new medical school interns, at Baptist Medical Center, northwest Oklahoma City. The year I spent there was very enjoyable, and I certainly learned a great deal in the "art" of practicing medicine. Following Oklahoma City, I moved to the metro Birmingham, Alabama (Fairfield) area for two years, 1975-77, and then on to huge Memphis, Tennessee, for one year, 1977-78. Thus, I completed my required three years of my medical residency (specialty) training in those two southern cities. It is during the three years I was in my residency training, I will enlarge on in the rest of this week's installment, dear readers in Our Town and far beyond. I did obtain my Oklahoma medical license in 1975, but also my Alabama license in 1976, and my Tennessee license in 1977. Getting these state licenses' allowed me to do additional work in AL and TN. Routinely, after I had done my daily required residency work, I would travel all over metro Birmingham, via my Oklahoma-purchased pickup truck, performing brief medical examinations on patients who had applied for various types of insurance policies. Picture me, a young man, wearing my waist-length white doctor's jacket, and carrying my black doctor's bag. I would routinely pull up to an inner city public housing project, park, get out, and walk through a usually very economically depressed neighborhood, until I reached my insured patient's address. Yes, I did get lots of stares from the local people, but I never had any issues, or other negative experiences. Some of the single family homes I entered were not constructed well, and, on some occasions, I could see daylight coming through cracks or defects in the home's walls. However, the home's residents were almost always very agreeable people, and always treated me, the young doctor, with utmost respect. What wonderful personal experiences I had way back then! Onward I moved, northwest of Birmingham to larger Memphis. The additional "after hours" work experiences in Memphis were quite different. While living there, I also obtained my Mississippi medical license, With both TN and MS licenses, I "moonlighted" in many different emergency rooms (ER) in both states, mostly on weekends. I had done some ER work the two years I lived in AL, too, but much more insurance work there. During the 1977-78 time period, I worked in rural, suburban and city hospital ER's. In the smaller hospitals, I would usually get a few hours of overnight sleep. They provided good on-site food, and, usually, a comfortable sleeping area. The larger the other hospitals, the busier I was during my shift. Occasionally, I would get little or no sleep, and would be forced to eat some food, literally while I worked! I did enjoy working with some of the same ER nursing and support staff each time I returned to a hospital I had previously worked. All these mentioned episodes in my medical journey long, long ago, helped further educate me about my gratifying healthcare profession. Let's certainly give sincere pats-on-the-backs to our front line healthcare folks, for their personal efforts to combat the now famous novel Covid-19 virus! Truly, jobs well done.