{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/d50ft8fs89/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Elton Cleveland"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine.  Disclaimer:  The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker’s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2022-05-09 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["video"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["family doctors","Arkansas","physicians","rural family medicine","Vietnam","veterinarian","veterinary school"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians (corporate name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine. \u0026nbsp;Disclaimer: \u0026nbsp;The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker\u0026rsquo;s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/194/752/small/Cleveland_Elton%285-9-2022%29.mp4_1688053636.jpg?1688053638","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97658/file/194752","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Cleveland__Elton_(5-9-2022).mp4"]},"duration":5328.55657,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/194/752/small/Cleveland_Elton%285-9-2022%29.mp4_1688053636.jpg?1688053638","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97658/file/194752/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97658/file/194752/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/194/752/original/Cleveland__Elton_%285-9-2022%29.mp4?1688053620","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":5328.55657,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97658/file/194752","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97658/file/194752/transcript/45032","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Transcript of Dr. Elton Cleveland interview [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97658/file/194752/transcript/45032/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Sam Taggart: \n\nGood afternoon, my name is Sam Taggart and we are in the office of Dr. Elton Cleveland at the Baptist Family Practice Residency in North Little Rock, Arkansas.  We’re here to interview him about his role in family medicine in Arkansas over the last however many years.   Now, the best place to start with all of this is at the beginning: When and where were you born?  Talk about the circumstances of your birth....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI was born in Paris, Arkansas on February 22, 1951.  I was delivered in Paris Hospital, which was built by the Smith Doctors, and Dr. John Smith delivered me.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nHe had an artificial limb that I could vividly remember; he had held so many kinds under the x-ray machine that he developed a tumor of his arm and had to be amputated.  So, he practiced with a hook on his right arm for all the years that I remember.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas it scary?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAs a little kid, yes...he’d take the stethoscope and put it in that little hook, then he’d set you against his roll-top desk so you couldn’t back up, and he’d listen and ostentate you that way.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, you are a few years younger than John Smith, his son who went on to medical school....or maybe it was his nephew.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nHis nephew, I believe; maybe his grandson.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWho actually practices in Ozark, kind of in Paris, and is taking possession of the hospital. \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHe has possession of the hospital..\n\nSo 1951, tell me a little bit about your parents; who were they, what were their names, when were they born?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAlright; my parents were Ethan and Vestal Cleveland or Vestal Cotton-Cleveland.  They were raised around Magazine, Arkansas; both.  Dad was born in 1915 and mom was born in 1917.  Dad was a barber and mother was a beautician.  I lived on the place that my grandpa Cotton built early on and when I was about 9-10, we tore the old two-story house down, took all that lumber, and built our new home out of it in 1959.  \n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nReally...yeah, ok....your family home....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nMy family did; yeah...\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...Wow, that’s neat...\n\nHow many brothers and sisters do you have and how old are they?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI only have one brother and he is five years older than I am.  He was born in 1946 and is 75 now.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHe is in politics or has been in politics?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nHe is an attorney and has been in politics; he was a Speaker of the House in the early 2000s in the Arkansas State Legislature.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThere was a lot of farming, a lot of coal mining earlier in that area ...was you family involved in that at all?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah...but, not at all; we have about five acres and the only farming we did was ...we usually had a milk cow, fed out a hog or two frequently while I was young, and raised a large garden.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat part of Arkansas was one of the earlier parts of Arkansas settled...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYep…\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBecause of the river; did the river play a big role in your life?  You weren’t very far from the river.  \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, we cat-fished a lot of the Arkansas River; my dad would take both of us, but I enjoyed it more than my brother did.  So, we did fish a lot on the river.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhere was your family from?  I mean European origin type thing....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nEuropean...primarily England; some Scottish I think a little bit of ancestry there.  But, they moved into Tennessee and then moved on to Arkansas in the late 1800s and have been in western Arkansas since then.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere you ever made aware of Dr. Bachelor...do you know of him?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI do not.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHe was in that part of.....there have been several books written about him...about that fellow. \n\nWhat kind of memories do you have of your childhood?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh honestly, they were great and I’m sorry a bunch of the young kids now can’t have the opportunity to grow up like I did.  I started delivering papers when I was 5, working for my brother who was older, and with the paper route, we knew everyone in the small town.  With mom and dad being the barber and a beautician, we knew everyone in town; so, we’d ride bicycles and play sports.  When we had a snow day, the gym was always open and we’d go to the gym and play basketball.  The school was so small that we didn’t have other sports in reality.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid your brother treat you or pay you well?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...yes, he did.\n\n(Laughing)...\n\nHe paid me all the pennies that we collected during the collections and I only had a small portion of the route.  I only had to ride about a mile-and-a-half when I was 5.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd you did your elementary and secondary education in Parris?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIn Magazine....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIn Magazine; I’m sorry...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI was born in Paris, but we’ve always lived in Magazine.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk......right.  Tell me about school; especially early school. \n\n \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nEarly school was very good.  We had some really ...a lot of my classmates are still close friends; a number of us went all the way through, from first grade to twelfth grade, together.  We had, I think, a really good education.  Interestingly enough when I got to college, there were more people in my college chemistry class than my whole school, one through twelve.....so, that was a little intimidating.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing)....Right.....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nBut, we had committed teachers who wanted to teach.   I had Ms. Winfield twice; she went from third grade to sixth grade and so, I got her twice.  We had a very strong education.  The elementary school was across the highway from the high school and so, that separated the kids fairly easily.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas the town of Magazine south of the mountain?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIt’s really west...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWest of the mountain; Ok...Were there any other people during that time frame.... especially in elementary and before school.....any teachers, preachers, dad, family members, grandparents who had a big impact on what you did with your life or what you wanted to do with your life? \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...probably my neighbor had as much an influence; Angus was a plumber and was just a delightful individual.  They helped keep me while my mom went to beauty school and they would treat me as their son; they did not have any children. They did have a nephew that was about my age; so when Buddy was going along, I got invited to go.  So, we went fishing overnight, camping, swimming...while my parents were working and so, they had a lot of impact on me.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou already mentioned fishing; did you have a lot of other interests...hunting or those kinds of things?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh....all our friends, we’d just ride bikes a lot, we rode horses a lot...one of my friends had a donkey that come out of the coal mines and his dad built a little cart for it ...so, we rode behind Poncho for a million miles it seems like.\n\n(Laughing)....So yes, for years we were always outdoors turned loose...leave the house by 8 o’clock and get home by dark.  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhere you engaged in sports?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, I played baseball until I was in fourth grade and then, my brother started working other things; so, I had to take over the paper route and had conflicts there.  I played basketball since that was the only sport at school until I was about a senior and I quit my senior year.  I had gone to work in Oklahoma wheat harvest farming in the summer and when I came back, I just kept on working through the school year.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIt just didn’t seem that important... (Laughing)\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIt just didn’t seem that important; exactly right.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you have a significant interest either in school or outside of school....not just the sport-type thing.....but, parts of school that you liked?  Things like history, literature, art, religion, school, church..... \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nWe went to a small rural Presbyterian church and just had a preacher who came out of Fort Smith, so we only had services on Sunday morning; we didn’t have services Sunday night or Wednesday night.  The largest Baptist church in Magazine would bring us all in and let us go to VBS with them and we really enjoyed that component of it.  I couldn’t get out and run around on the weekends to get into trouble unless I went to church or something like that; so, I visited the Baptist and the Methodist church frequently.  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing)...Did you do well in school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...yes sir, I did.  I did very well.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas it because you really enjoyed it or were you just real smart at that point?\n\n Dr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI think I enjoyed it; I think I have always really liked school a lot.  When I first started school, I had trouble working some math, reading math problems, and I worked and worked and had difficulty with that.  Mother sat down one day and said, “Here” and she read me the problem and I said, “well, it’s that answer”...she said, “Yeah” and we figured out that I couldn’t read very well. So a lot of times after that, we’d spend a little extra time reading and math was always much easier for me than history, civics, and all the reading components.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you ever remember a time when you were a young kid thinking about when.....like you would be in junior high school and your dad is a barber and your mom is a beautician ...saying “this is what I want to do when I grow up” or “this is where I want to live”.....?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI really enjoyed growing up in Magazine; I moved back after I went to veterinary college in Boonville, which is about seven miles up the road, and lived there for a while.  I lived there until I went to med school and it was a wonderful location with great people.  It’s ...we had...I can vividly remember a house burning down at Magazine and the house that burned down and the gentleman....they put a jug up in Larkin Loraine’s café and I saw a ....I want to say....yeah, I saw a man put a $100 bill, I had never seen a $100 in there, and I knew that he didn’t like the guy whose house burnt down and I thought, “That’s pretty cool that people take care of each other like that in town.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nThat really impressed me.”  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAgain and you’re going to get bored with me asking this question...were there any other people during that time frame...your junior and high school years....that had a big impact on you in terms of pushed you in one direction or another or that kind of thing? \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nNot really directing me; we had a number of individuals that would try to guide us and keep us out of trouble.  My best friend’s dad was in the Death March on Grenadier and so, he wouldn’t say much.  His wife was the sweetest lady, but I have probably been cussed by that woman more than anybody in the world.\n\n(Laughing)...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nShe would get after us until we got hurt and then, she’d take care of us...then, give us a cussing and the send us on our way; but if he ever said something, you sat there and listened and you did not question.  He probably had a lot of impact on that....but, we had a lot of war veterans that really kind of were community leaders and well respected who would support you all the way through.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...yeah...\n\nObviously, you worked all the time that you were in school.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes sir...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat was just part of what you were expected to do?\n\nYes sir...yeah; I delivered papers, worked in a grocery store, hauled manure for gardens with the tractor and trailer, worked on the farm and bailed hay for a number of years, went to Oklahoma and worked in the wheat harvesting farm, worked on the road and grounds crew at Fort Chaffee, I painted barracks at Fort Chaffee....lot of things.  Speaking of that, one of the guys that I worked for on the farm was a German Dutchman and he taught me really how to work.  J.W. had a work ethic that you got there, you worked from daylight till dark, you do what you’re supposed to do, you do it well, and you do it right.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nThat helped me a lot ...when you’re in your formative years; you’re 14 and just learning to drive a tractor, learning to run a bailer, and things like that...it takes a lot of patience and he really...he’s taught a number of young men.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you take all of the courses that you could take in Magazine School?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...yes sir..\n\n(Laughing)...\n\nI had to take vocational math my senior year because I had run out of other courses to take and it was taught by the math teacher...it was basically addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt some point during that time...I’m skipping over something here...were your parents religious?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI may have already asked you that...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah, we went to a small Presbyterian Church.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nPresbyterian Church; yeah...did religion play a big role in your life? \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, yes...it was, I think, something that was honestly within the community...a very strong religious component and multiple churches in town.  My grandmother was killed crossing the road going to church; a car hit her.  She was late 60s, didn’t have a grey hair, and had on a dark coat; there was no way anybody could’ve seen her at night, so it was just one of those things....but, the whole family was pretty well committed.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas you and your brother going on for more education a big deal for your parents?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes...they said, you know, that that is really the only way they could improve things for us is education.  Dad had to quit and work for the family when he was growing up and didn’t graduate high school until he was 21; so, I always kind of admired that...him going back and getting his diploma at 21 when he could’ve not done that. But, education really was a strong component.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo when you get through high school, or going through high school, what informed your decision on where you were going to go to college?  \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nMy brother had gone to the University of Arkansas and once you’re a hog fan, you’re a hog fan for life.  It’s just like listening to the cardinals on the radio...most of us, my age, are cardinals fans; because that was the only team we could get on the radio.\n\n(Laughing)...\n\nSo, that was the biggest decision.....that was the major college in Arkansas and where I wanted to go; following after my brother.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen did you start thinking about veterinary school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...I had horses growing up and liked to ride.  We were 10-12 and we’d get on horses, take off early daylight, come back at dark, and unsaddle them...just go all day. So, I had one nearly all my life.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo when you went off to college, was the idea that you were going to be a vet at that point?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, if I could go ahead and make good enough grades; it was...yeah.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBecause, you were going to have to go off to Oklahoma to go to veterinary school....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYep....yes sir; Oklahoma State had a contract that they would take four students out of Arkansas.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo you go from Magazine School to the University of Arkansas as a freshman and that’s somewhere around....when did you graduate from high school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI graduated in ’69 and I started in the fall of ‘69.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight in the middle of Vietnam....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYep...right in the middle of Vietnam.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere you one of those with a lottery number?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI drew 267.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk, so you were pretty safe...as long as you kept your grades up.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAs long as we kept the grades up...when I graduated, I elected to go 1-A and the draft board put me 1-F since I went to vet school and by the time that vet school was over, it was over.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk.......\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nSo that way I was in ROTC, but I did not serve in any other militarily service.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo how is undergraduate college different for someone who is going to be a veterinarian versus someone who is going to go to medical school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAlmost the same...I took comparative anatomy and I was the only Aggie in there and one of the pre-med students gave me grief about me being a “dumb Aggie”...but, I was very fortunate and snuck through there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAgain were there any teachers...not just restricted to teachers...but people in your college career that had an impact on you and lead you in one direction or another?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh....the most probably...we had...I had a couple of teachers and both of them taught in the animal science division; Paul Knowland and Lowie Stratton.  Dr. Knowland was the advisor for the AGR House where I lived until I got married and then, Lowie was a retired.....he left a veterinary practice in Siloam Springs and went to Oklahoma State and was involved and then was veterinarian for the University for a number of years where I happened to be there.  He helped me a lot with education, then in looking for a vet school, and then became one of my instructors while I was at OSU.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nReally; that’s interesting....so, he just kind of followed your career path.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nHe followed it closely and has been a wonderful mentor; he even moved back when his wife passed away...he moved back, remarried, and lived in ______, Oklahoma and he’d call me and say, “You know, I’m not doing well; which doctor do I need to see in Fort Smith?” So, I set him up \n\nwith a classmate of mine that is an excellent family physician and she took excellent care of him until he passed away.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah.....yeah... \n\nTalk a little bit about the process of going to veterinarian school; is it like taking the MCAT test and applying?  Is the process the same?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAlmost exactly the same....except when I went, I think, there were 280 applicants for four positions in vet school and 900 applicants for 120 positions for med school that year, I think; so, competition was fairly good.  Very interesting; when I walked in at OSU, we sat around a conference table, seven folks sat there, and all they had was my name on a blank sheet of paper.  They talked to me for 30 minutes and then, I went to the room next door where Dr. Fran and Dr. Peterson were there and they had everything on you that you ever had. They asked me what happened my freshman year and did I enjoy college and I said, “Yes sir, I really did” and they said, “It appears you did.”\n\n(Laughing)...\n\nThey said, “What happened?” and I told them that I had gotten married and decided what I wanted to do and got serious about it.  I think it was yesterday that my wife was making fun of it and told one of the grandkids, “yeah, it took him three years of four points to get that 2.5 up where it was presentable to the vet school.”    \n\n(Laughing).....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, when did you meet your wife to be, what was her name, when was she born, and those kinds of things?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, we met; honestly the first time we met was while I was dating her cousin, but I really impressed her and she has no remembrance of that what so ever.  So, we really met in college; I was a year ahead of her and she lived in the same dorm as a bunch of my friends, girls and guys, who we ran around with together. Linda Lucas was her maiden name and Linda and I have been married 51 years in August.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you know when her birthday is?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes sir, 5/08/52; it was yesterday.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk, so ya’ll are right there....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nRight there...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow long did ya’ll date before you got married?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh about a little less than a year...a little less than a year; I started dating her just kind of as soon as college started and we got married right before college started the next year.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, you partied your first year and then the next three years, you settled down and got serious. Did you work during college?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes sir, I worked all the way through.  We were looking at my grandson’s tuition and fees and what it’s going to cost now, for a year at Fayetteville and Linda and I were fortunate that we had full-tuition scholarship, which at that time was $125.00 a semester.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing)...yeah...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nSignificantly different now....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you live in a dorm?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI lived in a dorm the first semester.  I lived in a fraternity house the second semester and lived there the second year and then got married between my sophomore and junior year.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAgain, were there any people in your college career who had an impact on you?  Was Dr. Sacs still there, the organic teacher, at the university; do you remember that name?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI don’t....Dr. Quartz was my chemistry teacher at that time that I remember.  I remember organic was one of the toughest courses; I remember fortunately doing relatively well with organic.   I remember 25 being a D for some of my classmates, which was fairly significantly tough for us at that time.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...did you have any other areas of interests, besides your wife to be and getting into vet school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUm...honestly once we just did that, I just worked and tried to make things happen.  I went to summer school the year after we married and so, I’d get up...I took junior English at 7 o’clock, biochemistry at 9 o’clock, and then I was working in construction by ten-thirty in the morning.  Since I didn’t start early, any of the afterhours stuff that they... they hired me because they didn’t have to pay overtime to me....so, I worked a lot of extra; hauling sheet rock into apartments and things like that...we built apartments.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you enjoy college?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI did....I did.  It made a lot of good strong friends, and associates, and friends that we have bumped into, interacted with, and worked with each other since that time.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou have already mentioned, once to twice already, that you have friends from when you were a small child, you have friends from high school, and you have friends from college...that you’re still friends with....\n\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes...yep.  We had our 50th year class reunion, of course in ’19, and it was just like everybody was same-o-same-o.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow many kids were there?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh......we had, I think, 17 or 18; there were 25 in my graduating class.  We had one that her granddaughter won Miss Rodeo Oklahoma that day; so, she wasn’t going to be there. For Kathy, that’s appropriate; she should take care of that.... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight...sure...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nBut yeah, we’re still friends and bump into them a lot.  One of my classmates married my wife’s first cousin and so, we see them a lot and another one of my classmates married a first cousin; so, three of us are roughly in the same family when we have get-togethers.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas there any thought that you might not get into med school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, yes sir; a lot of it. I was worried about it, especially with the 2.5 my first semester.   Tyson and Georges were just taking off and so, I got my BS in animal nutrition where I would have a logical job taking care of things like that.  My father-in-law had layers and so, we had two chicken houses and they raised or gathered eggs from about 30,000 chickens a day.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhere was your wife from?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nShe was from Waveland, Arkansas...between Havana and Boonville up highway 10...about 15 miles from Magazine.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo close to home...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nClose to home...so, I thought that that was the most logical plan to have a good idea of a way to make a living and do what I enjoyed.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo talk a little bit about that...you got accepted, when did you start veterinarian school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI started in the fall of ’73 and they were very good.  One of the boys didn’t get admitted, but we had such good applicants that year that they let six of us in instead of four.  One of the guys that I bumped into at graduation said that he had just been accepted to vet school.  In fact, we are all friends and we had our 40th class reunion in Tahoe in ’17 and we’re having our 45th in Medicine Park this September.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIn Oklahoma...yeah..\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nSo, we’re...that’s the group that is really close.  We’re still...those are the ones that you can call at 2a.m. and say, “I need this” and there’s no question that they are getting in the car and doing whatever you’re asking them to do; that’s still that group of friends. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...yeah.....did they stay in veterinarian medicine? \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes....I’m probably the only deserter.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat kind of veterinarian medicine did they go into?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...it is just really varied; we’ve had full equine practitioners, one of my good friends run a preconditioning lot in Oklahoma...all they do is take care of cattle, I’ve got a friend who is a veterinarian pathologist and does consulting for some of the biggest medical firms in the US and is also a consultant for some of the research firms in China, I have friends who are small animal veterinarians in Houston and at Tampa.  There is a mixed practice in Maryland.  When we had a reunion, 31 out of 60 showed up and 11 had died; so, that was a pretty good number for that class.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nGenerally, my impression is that in medicine....you have about a 40 year work lifespan for most people; is that true in veterinarian medicine as well?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUm......most of them; I think some of the large animal vet stuff really takes a toll.  I think two or three of them had already had back surgery at the reunion just because of the injuries from heavy lifting and the trauma that we can endure doing large animal vet practice...a few of them have had surgeries from when they got kicked; things like that.  But honestly, there are a significant number of them still working now.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAgain compared to medical...I asked you for some comparisons earlier....compare going to vet school with going to medical school; how long is it, are the first couple of years basics and then clinical?\n\n \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nVery comparable all the way through; both of them four years with the first two years generally class work, the second two years...the third year was clinical and the fourth year, you will kind of do your rotations and the things that you were really interested in.  I worked through there and even taught anatomy at the med school my fourth year. We had surgery ponies that we would operate on that they would bring in.....so I made sure that I got a gentle one and I would go home, we lived within walking distance from that school, and I would pick up my son, take him up there, and let him ride my surgery pony while I was checking on him after work.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTalk about the surgery ponies....what is that?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIt was a live pony that we would go ahead and do specific operations on within school as students.  While we learned anatomy, they had embalmed specimens; the cow and the horse were pre-dissected, but we still had to do the smaller animals like the dog, the cat, and the birds.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow you said that because of the chicken industry in Arkansas, you considered animal nutrition as a course in veterinarian school; is that what you ended up doing?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nNo, I have a BS in animal nutrition; once I went to vet school, I decided that I wanted to practice full-practice veterinary medicine.  They offered me a radiology scholarship there at the med school and I was not smart enough to take it; so, I came home to Arkansas and Arkansas was good enough that they paid...instead of having a vet school, they paid my out-of-state tuition.  So, I paid tuition just like an Oklahoma student and that allowed me to probably go to vet school and so, I felt like I owed the state a little bit...I wanted to come back and practice in Arkansas.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart:    \n\nWas vet school expensive?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...it was relatively expensive; yes sir, it was.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nCompared to college...maybe not now, but compared to....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIn college, I was able to work enough that I didn’t spend any of my savings on college; I worked hard enough that I kept what I had.  In vet school, I used all that and borrowed some more... honestly, I was in vet school four years, practiced six years, and so ten years out, I paid off my vet school loans in July and stated med school in August. So...yeah....\n\n    \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing)....Oh me....so, you finished vet school when?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...’77.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd you moved back to Boonville?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nBoonville...yeah.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you set up practice by yourself or did you go in with someone?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI worked for the Paris Veterinary Clinic for a few months and then, I bought the Boonville Clinic, which was an established clinic then.  I was very blessed; the Boonville Clinic was an established clinic and it grew by the power of 10 within three-and-a-half years. So, I was very blessed to have a good practice.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI think everybody is aware of the life of a solo country doctor; what about the life of a solo or 1-2 man veterinarian clinic in an area that is highly populated with animals?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUm...it’s wild....it’s....my life was very good and l had two vet techs that were amazing.  When I bought the practice, I kept the lady on who had been there for 25 years.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, you were in fact solo....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes...yes, by myself; but, she helped a lot.  She’d say, “If they want to charge it, that’s ok”....she knew who in the county would pay their bills and who wouldn’t and that saved me a lot.  \n\nUnfortunately, her husband passed away and she moved, but I had another delightful young lady who was good and very active. I was very fortunate to have really good employees while I worked there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen did you start thinking...”well, maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as a vet.  I might want to go back to medical school”...because, that’s a big decision...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, very big...my...I got my back hurt so bad tiling up cows in the spring and the year before last, I lost my best friend; he was trying to pull a calf out of a pond and drowned apparently.  We don’t know; that’s where they found him. One of my years, I pulled like 8-10 cows out of ponds and you’re out there by yourself or with some farmer, who are old like I am now, thinking they can still raise cattle; so, they couldn’t crawl out there on the ice, put a halter on the cow,  pull them out, or tail them up. So, my back got to hurting and one day I was hurting so bad, I had just gone home; I didn’t have anything else for a couple of hours.  So, I thought I’d just relax and took some pain medicine and a hot bath; about that time, I got a cabin call and so, I decided, “Well”....my wife got a call right at that time that she needed to go to the school and check on my son and I said, “that’s no problem.”  So, I took off and one guy pulled out in front of me and I can remember I said, “Sonny, you better hit the gas, I’m going to run clean over you” and never thought to hit the brake. Fortunately, there was no accident; he just took off and waved real big. There were no problems there, but...      \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIt scared you to death....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah, it scared me to death and after that happened, I thought, “you know, I can’t do that all the time.” Finally, my wife said, “You know, if you’ll go back to school, I’ll go back to work” and I honestly couldn’t envision myself inspecting chickens every day for the rest of my life on a line.  So, this was our favorite alternative, and she was good enough to support me through it.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow much schooling did you have to go back and do or did you have to go back and do any?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI had been out over three years and if I’d been less than three years, I wouldn’t have had to take all the curses that I had to take; but, I had to take everything.  So, I had four years of med school and three years of residency.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBut how much college...?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh, none...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, you didn’t have to do anything there...again, I’m going to ask you again.... were you worried about getting accepted into medical school?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, yes...in fact, I’d applied and finally I had one day that was kind of quiet and I thought, “Why don’t I just go down and look to make sure that this is kind of what I want” and so, I just came in and visited...while I was there at the Dean’s office, I just had on a short sleeve shirt and a tie and one of the guys said, “You’re here; do you want an interview while you’re here?”...so, I said, “Sure.”  It was cold and they were just crazy enough to let me into med school.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThis was what year?\n\n Dr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIt was ’83...well, I interviewed in the fall of ’82; so, I got in in ‘83. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere you in the class with Annette Enderlin?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nShe’s my wife.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh...alright...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat is my wife.   ...... (Laughing)....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAlright....yeah, because she graduated in ’87 with us and....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, she had been a pharmacist for 15 years; just like you, she’d....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nShe’d done that and went to ophthalmology; I think....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah; yeah, she’s now retired from ophthalmology...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nWell wonderful...\n\n     \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt what point in time did you start.....you started medical school in ’83 and they didn’t make you go back and take any more college courses or do anything else...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nNo...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIsn’t that interesting....\n\nHow did you like medical school; let’s say the first two years?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUm....honestly, it was tough; but it was so much easier than what I’d been doing...\n\n(Laughing)....And easier working the shorter hours that I was with my family and it worked out well for me honestly.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah... now back to the same ole question that I asked you earlier....any people in that first two years who had a significant impact on you and what you would ultimately do?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nNot really; I probably looked more at doing pathology, dermatology, radiology than I did family medicine until I got to the clinics.  Path, those folks just didn’t talk to you; so, I didn’t do that.  \n\nDerm, it just....I couldn’t get excited about it and then, I got sleepy in the radiology reading room.  \n\n(Laughing)....It just didn’t work out and so, I thought, “you know, I like to do this, and this, this, and this”....so once we hit clinics, it just kind of clicked and I liked it all.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nJust go for it...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDan Knight told me that when he was in clinics, Arlo Khan and Les Anderson...both of those guys had a big impact on him; were there any of these family doctors who when you did your rotations with them had a big impact on you?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIn fact, Dan was my senior resident when I started my internship; Arlo was still there, Jamie Howard, Brinberry, Gary Woods, Kent Davidson ....Kent probably stimulated some of the sports medicine interest, a lot, and some of the physical activity things that we tended to.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...ok, alright...so at that point in time, you started your second two years and again the same question....I’m going to get boring here...... any people in that time frame who had an impact on you in thinking, “Look, I like their attitude”...”I like the way they approach medicine” ...”I like the way they approach people or the patients”...?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...probably Teri Yamauchi...probably impacted me as much as anyone; maybe he and Dick Jacobs. I studied a lot at Children’s; I stayed in Little Rock to get my residency.  I had a house picked out in Fort Smith and one at Fayetteville; one of the boys who sit right next to me played for the hogs...in fact, he played in the Orange Bowl when we won down in Florida...but, Mark said, “No, you need to stay here” and I said, “No, you need to go to Fayetteville with me”....he went to Fayetteville and I stayed here.\n\n(Laughing)...We both did a good job of recruiting, I guess, but I wanted to stay; my son was in school here and fairly comfortable with a group of friends and I didn’t want to upset that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen did you start having children?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nHe was born in ’74; so, he was in fourth grade when we moved here.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHis name is what?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nJustin...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat kind of work does he do?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, he runs a solar company and a pothole company right now and has been in construction for the past 20 years too.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you have other children?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nNo...just one; we were planning another one, but we had a miscarriage our fourth year of vet school and so, we decided that we’d wait until we kind of got into practice....then all the sudden, it was 10 years out and we decided, “Na, we don’t need two only families. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWho were some of your residency mates when you were in the family practice residency?\n\n  \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nDan was one of upper level resident for me and then, Dena Hall and I probably worked about as close together as anyone; we were both chief residents and we reformatted some of the educational issues and programs for the clinic.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou are obviously a teacher now; when did you first have the inclination that you might like to be a teacher?\n\n Dr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYep...um, I kind of liked it all along, but Bob Pfizer caught me at .....My son went to one school and his son went to the opposing school...when I was in residency, I tried to work a way in my schedule where I could miss very few on the games and he would do the same thing.  So, we’d visit during the competitions there frequently and at our final football game of the year, he caught me and asked me what I was going to do the next year.  I said, “I don’t have an idea yet” and he said, “Come see me tomorrow.” My son was in the 10th grade at that time and he said, “I just hired a kid out of Cincinnati, an Arkansas kid, and he is a pediatrician. If I hire a family doc, just out of school...” and he’d offered me to come into the pediatric group and I told him that I couldn’t do that all my life; I couldn’t do well baby checks all my life, so... \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nHe said, “If I bring a family doc in, he can take care of my older kids probably a lot better than my pediatrician; so, if I put both of those two together, I’ll have a stronger adolescence section than anybody out in the country.” So, I thought, “That’s pretty innovative thinking”.....I needed a year or two to let me son graduate high school as he was with a peer group that I liked and I didn’t want to change.  So, I visited with the young man that he just hired and he was a very bright young physician....and a good colleague for 25 years, I guess; 28 years or something like that.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat was his name?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nBrian Harden...he was head of the adolescent section at Children’s for years; I was the only family doc at Children’s for 28 years.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nReally?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou started that in what year?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\n1990 in the division of adolescent medicine...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBy this time was Wayne Herbert here?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, he was out in private practice.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBut, he was doing adolescent medicine; the same kind of thing...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nHe was doing adolescent, some...yeah...he’d work a little bit, but his practice was more peds than it was adolescent.  Wayne would come over and attend for us every once in a while while we were getting up.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you have any crises along the way?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOther than your freshman year of college.... (Laughing)...that wasn’t really a...... \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, that wasn’t really a crises; that was a self induced dilemma.  Med school really helped me because during my sophomore year, my father-in-law had a stroke and I took my mother-in-law and my wife and we stayed in Fort Smith for 10-12 days and then we brought him here for rehab for 6-8 weeks until he passed away. So, I took care of the farm and Mrs. Lucas for a year or two and in ’85, we moved her in with us. Probably in ’86, about a year after he passed away, she developed some Alzheimer symptoms and we took care of her for a number of years here and then moved her to a nursing home in Danville where some of my wife’s family has been in for probably the past 40 years.\n\n Dr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou finished your residency when now?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIn ’90...but we took care of that...my brother had open-heart surgery and had some issues there for a couple of weeks and then, my father had lung cancer and was out for...it took me a while to get all that managed; so, it allowed me to manage family issues well and that was probably one of the most things that I’m thankful for.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nA private veterinarian, single practice; it would’ve been hard to be able to do all that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, I bet it would’ve been really really tough.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo from 1990 on...that’s 30 years.....what has been your general course during this period of time?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh, I taught in the section of adolescent medicine at Children’s for that time and the neat thing about it is that I’m boarded in sports medicine, adolescent medicine, and family medicine; so in reality, I’m triple boarded.  I just took my adolescent boards last year and so, I’m good until 12/31/31 and I’m good until ’29 for family medicine boards. The good thing about it was Dr. Pfizer thought, “let’s get some young men involved with that, because we don’t see a lot of that” and so, we started sports medicine plus and covered a lot of the junior high football teams and introduced a lot of the pediatricians to coverage and some of the orthopedic docs.  I taught a lot.....when we look at it, the pediatricians are the “adolescent doctors” and they do a very good job of it...but, the family doc sees 85% of the teenagers.  So one of my goals was to really educate our family docs about more adolescent health care, management education, and help them with the questions that they had; so, that was honestly one of my strongest goals while I w as doing that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah....how long did Kent Davidson stay?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, I do not remember when Kent moved; but he moved away after my residency.  I think it was late ’90; I think he had probably been gone20-25 years.  But, Kent went and did some sports medicine in Seattle for six months and that’s how he kind of got involved with it.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah....\n\nSo, 28 years working in education....right or more?\n\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYep...uh...more now....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow much now and how is it different...when did you join this family practice residency?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI came over in 2018.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nFrom Children’s.....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nFrom Children’s...Dr. Garner recruited me since musculoskeletal is a big portion of family medicine now and a portion of the educational and boards.  When you and I trained, we had less than 2% of our education was musculoskeletal medicine and now our boards are roughly around 12% musculoskeletal medicine.\n\n    \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nReally?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah, so, emphasis was placed on that and she recruited me to be part of that; she wanted me to kind of assist with the program, so I’m associate director here and been there since ‘18.  We helped get the application in, dealt with the first site visit....honestly, right before I started, I was involved with that....and then, we had the full-site visit in September after we had our first set of residents and were very fortunate and got a 10-year accreditation with no citations.\n\n    \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow many residents are y’all certified for....first, second, and third year...and how many do y’all have?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nWe are 12/12/12 and we have 12/12/12.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, you are getting a full match pretty much every year?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nA full match....we’ve matched fully every year until this year and we didn’t match fully, but we supped and got the last one.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI don’t know what that means...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh; supplemental....what happens there is honestly we got a little more selective on our applicants and if we thought we might have difficulty getting through or their educational experience was not up to where we wanted, we didn’t match with them.  One of the young ladies didn’t throw her application wide enough and only applied to a few and we got a very bright young lady out of California to come in for our last position and so honestly, it probably helped us that we didn’t match fully this year.\n\n     \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSomebody, I think it was Mathew Nix, told me that when he applied for his residency, he did a suicidal application where he only applied for one place.  (Laughing).....I had never heard that term before.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nThat was probably a pretty good application; they recommend applying for 30 to 50 positions now.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nReally; my goodness...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes...when you and I applied, 7-10 as a norm and 20 was recommended, but now they recommend 30-50.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAre y’all placing any osteopathic kids?  Not kids, doctors...I’m sorry?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes, we have...young physicians, yeah...we have two DOs in our first year class and one or two in our second; so, we’ve had a couple every year.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nCan you tell any difference?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nEducational-wise, uh....academically, they all do about the same; honestly.  Some of them have had to work a little harder at getting some of the clinical experiences than some of the ones who just kind of got spoon fed along; so some of their training has been a little more self-motivating and in some areas, maybe a little more stronger than the standard MD. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAre y’all having any interaction with either the Jonesboro or Fort Smith programs?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes, we’ve got residents from both; very good.  I have been very pleased with the students and young physicians that we’ve gotten from the programs.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo when did you first get involved with the Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh...late my senior year; I wasn’t really thinking about going into family medicine until about my senior year.  So, I got involved....I went to the state meetings and got involved after that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt that point, they had a group called “The Interest Group”.....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nEarlier, it was”Family Practice Club”....it’s had several different names, but was that the “Interest Group” that you....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nFamily Medicine Interest Group...yeah.  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThe people who were involved in the academy at that time were an interesting...interesting ... group of people...a fascinating group of people.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI would...very colorful, fascinating individuals.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nJim Weber, Shot Rodgers, George Warren, Lee Parker and all those....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you have any contact with those guys?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh, um...I did a rotation with Dr. Weber and I worked in Shot’s clinic during my residency; I ran the moonlighting schedule for the residents there.  I visited with Dr. Warren quite a bit when he was in...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen he moved up here with Bover?\n\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYes…\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThe cardiologist....       \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nBut Emery, his son, was in our residency; he was a year ahead of me and so, we worked together quite a bit.  Honestly, I worked for him doing physicals in the state hospital in my residency.  So, the other one...oh, Lee Parker; Lee is one of the most interesting individuals that I’ve ever known and one I would say....gentleman/physician that I most respected for a long long time.  He is the, I think, if they put.... an ultimate family doctor, you would put Lee Parker’s name in that parenthesis in my opinion.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight....when you read this book that I’m working on, you will see several quotes from Carla Coleman and two or three other people talking about Dr. Parker in the same vein; the exact same vein. \n\nSo, medical school; ok....... now, I have several other questions that I want to ask about your experience and where you think the academy is going and what the academy can do to stay pertinent.....really, really, important stuff; for me, it’s important.  I started to stop this history in 2000, because it’s hard to write about things that are in the process of happening.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nExactly...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBut I decided, “No, I’m going to go ahead and just go out there on a limb.”  In the last 20 years, there have been several significant issues that have come up and been front and forward....you know in the ‘80-‘90 time frame, you had cost containment....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIt became a issue between ’80 and 2000; privileges became a real issue, and there have been several other issues...but since that time....the future of family medicine in 2002, that big conference, electronic medical records, telemedicine, the patient center medical home...let’s talk about those issues a little bit; ok.  I think those issues are playing a role in what you are teaching to these kids obviously....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nA lot of really difficult issues...because I am still quite a bit old school and it was a lot easier for me to find pertinent information, easily and quickly, in a paper chart than I can do it in the electronic record’ primarily because we have so many templates and they look similar.  I was reviewing a chart and I went back...not a family doc...I went for seven days and I still couldn’t tell if this doc had even seen this patient by looking in the chart for seven days; so, that was just one example.  Privileges, I think, are really important for us; I think with the specializations and the family docs...they do a really good job; but in rural Arkansas, the family doc does nearly everything.\n\n            \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAnd cost containment, we are the cheapest thing out there; but honestly, we’re the most cost productive thing out there.  Because what we can do and save, I think, is really a tremendous \n\nasset.  I have an inherent bias...being a veterinarian where I did 8 surgeries one night from 8:30 to 3:30 am and then, you get up and go and start your day...those type of things that I used to do.....I think the family docs can still do a lot of that.  I think in third world countries, it is amazing what we can do.  I think the tort reform issues and the legislature that we had a few years ago was very, very, good; it really helped us, I think.  I think that that has been diluted subsequently and so, it makes it very difficult to have a broad breathe of practice.  But, I think it is important for us to do things and do it well.  So, I don’t think everything is really all that wrong.  I think that some of the nursing issues that we’ve had; the nurses that I’ve had experience with have been just fabulous.  Nurse practitioners that I’ve had have been very good and very functional.  The ones that...I’ve had a few go through the program that I was worried about their clinical expertise; when they compare to us and we only have 20,000 hours more of education than they did, I think it’s difficult for me to go ahead and encourage my family to use one exclusively as a primary care provider.  I don’t mean that as a detriment to them at all; I think it just needs to be part of education and they need to be very, very, good.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah....the law....I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt......the law that passed in ’19, ’20, or whatever, says that they are required to do 3,600 hours of monitored observation before they practice independently; do you think that that will be carried out effectively or will it just be something that is perfunctory?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, I really don’t know and can’t answer that.  When I‘ve had them in the clinic working under one of the nurse practitioners that was in our clinic, we did education with them just like we did the residents and really worked hard to educate them appropriately; but, I still am worried about their completeness of education.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat about telemedicine and its impact over the last couple of years and does what has happened with Covid portends a difference for the future for telemedicine?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI think, yes; I think especially...there are certain subspecialties, especially psychiatry that I think after you see them, you evaluate them well, and we have a good physical exam on that individual...that you may have some very good follow-ups via telemedicine.  I think if we have like an elderly couple that doesn’t need to be driving a lot and has the capabilities of taking their blood pressure and keeps a good log, taking it appropriately, we can have a blood pressure follow-up with that individual easily and save them time and effort.  Hopefully safety, the older I get the more I worry; I had an older gentleman in the clinic who had fallen three times last week...that worries me.  It scares me to death and the more that I can prevent that, the better off we are. I think that telemedicine is honestly here to stay and I hope CMS recognizes the quality and value that it is...especially to a rural state.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou and I are in the same basic age-range and the kids that you are teaching now are the age of your grandchildren....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYep...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThey grew up with phones/computers in their hand....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYep...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you see any difference in the way that they taking to electronic medical records and to telemedicine as opposed to those of us who have been around for a long time? \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh yeah....they’re ducks in water; I mean, they’re happy.  They do it and their typing skills are phenomenal.  I would still like to see them write out their best H\u0026P they ever write, handwritten, sometime where they have logically think all the way through it.  It’ a personal preference of mine just because it is much easier for me to take that paper, hold it, look at it, and evaluate it than it is to go down a screen.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...this may even before your time, but it wasn’t before my time....the county medical society still existed when I started practicing medicine and you had a meeting once a month or once every other month and they were a source of continuing education.\n\n \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAs far as I can tell, the county medical society has just gone away; there may be one or two left....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nPulaski County, I think, is about the only one....yeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThe big impact from what I have been able to ascertain from a lot of the guys who I have interviewed over the years has been that the one thing that the Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians provided was good pertinent continuing education. How does, in this day when you can get 20 hours worth of credit spending an hour on the internet, the academy stay pertinent?  \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAlright, I think that one is a really valid question... I think one of the most important things is the relationships that we develop and when we are at the meeting, we see old friends...those; we may not see them but at that time once a year, but those relationships last for years and years.  I am much more likely  to give you a benefit of the doubt on any question; in fact, we had veterinary meetings and one of my friends taught me a neat lessons when I was young and training and I’ve tried to share that...give everybody a benefit of a doubt.  We had a veterinarian in our area that we called, “backhoe”...when he saw your cow, you’re just supposed to call backhoe at the same time, because you’re going to bury her....a lady came into the office and was fussing about this veterinarian and my mentor Dr. Shure said, “You know, interesting; I had lunch with him at the veterinary regional meeting in Fort Smith the other night” and I thought, “Huh, that’s kind of a strange answer.”  So, I asked him after that and he said, “Next time, she’s upset with anybody, it’ll be me and I want them to give me the same benefit of the doubt.  I told her that we were at an educational meeting and we had a meal together, which both of those things are true.  We know what we think of his medicine, but we may not know everything about it and we need to give him a benefit of a doubt.”  So, I try to do that with my colleagues and my peers and I hope that they do the same.\n\n      \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOnto the academy though, what’s the academy going to do to stay pertinent? I know ya’ll are having...in fact, I’m coming to it...I know y’all are having a meeting in June up on Pettit Jean or somewhere up there and I want to come to it....a strategic planning meeting; what does the academy do...what does the American Academy or the American Medical Association do to stay pertinent?  \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nPertinent will be education, because we have to stay up; since we are dealing with boards and stuff.  They’ve been very slow at receiving input, but they receive input...so we have a longitudinal plan for maintenance of certification now that the Arkansas Academy developed and presented; that one is how we have the longitudinal maintenance of that, which is tremendous and that changes...makes it a lot easier, because we have a phone in our hand.  Everybody does now; that’s the way we practice medicine. So, we need to practice and be tested like we practice, which is pertinent to that and so, I think education is really something that we all need to continue on for the good of it. How many new medicines have come out in the last few years?  Honestly, you have been retired just a few; but, it’d be hard to catch backup...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOh absolutely....\n\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAnd the medicines would be the most difficult area, because they change so rapidly.  So, we need to go ahead and provide education and we need to have it in-person and on-line. I did a live course online, a live course in sports medicine, and it was very good; but, it’s hard for me to have total attention and be able to go from one to the other.  It’s hard for me to go ahead and establish relationships that I may be able to do research with another family doc that is in Seattle or a family doc that is in Houston; where when we go to the meetings, we can interact and make plans with an associate and see all the interests we’re able to...so, education.  Politically, I think that that one is going to be the most important pertinent things we can do; everybody is trying to restrict us and folks who are not physicians and do not understand medicine are trying to direct how and when we practice medicine and I think that makes it not good for our patients. So, I think we need to go ahead and have standard relationships with our legislators and be able to call them...be friends with them.  To have those relationships where we are used a resources by that individual instead of having a lot of questions....they call us and say, “So, what do you think about this?  What’s going on there?  What will it do for your patients? \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAnd when we say, “this is good for our patients and this will”... what will happened is they are much more likely to look at it... where if we say, “That would be great for me, but bad for the patient” and we are much more likely to answer the question that way than probably any other group.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah..\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI’m very biased on that and I think that is a biased answer... but, I think, we as a group are much more altruistic and anficent towards our patients than some of the other.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat’s ok...   \n\nI’m going to use a quote when I do your profile...it’s not from you, it’s from Dr. Will somebody from the early 20th century...he said that, “Illness should always be treated objectively.  Relationships should always be treated subjectively.”  ..... (Laughing)....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nThat is true.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI think it is very true. \n\nWhat do you think the future of family medicine is?\n\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI think we’re molding and I think we’re honestly...I think we’re getting stronger and stronger; when we look at what is happening in the medical community, the subspecialists are growing.  But, I think one of the major issues of their growth is the debt amount of our students; so when they have to pay that off, they are looking at a long term equal to their house loan level. So, if it takes them 20-30 years to pay off their educational loan that makes it very difficult...so, it’s much easier to pay off if you have a high income subspecialty than it is a hard working family doc. But, I think our relative value is going to be increased and increased and CMS and the government are going to honestly make us more of a prominent relative value than some of the subspecialties are.\n\n   \n\n Dr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow is your health?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nExcept for obesity, it’s great.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAre you doing ok from that standpoint?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nYeah, they...my arthropod, when he was operating on my knee, made fun of me; he asked me what medicines I took and I told him I take a vitamin, fish oil, and allergy medicine and he said, “what blood pressure, what statins?” and I said, “I don’t.” He made fun of me because he didn’t think I was telling him the truth; but, I’m on no medicines.   I enjoy hunting and fishing.  I enjoy chasing grandkids around and went to....we’ve had baseball and soccer...we have baseball and soccer state tournaments this week that both the grandkids are in.  The youngest one soccer tournament age group is Sunday, so just running around and trying to keep up with them.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou are now 69 or 70...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nI’m 71.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt some point, you’re going to have retirement in the face...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOh yeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSomewhere down the road; have you thought about that?\n\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh yes....I would like to be able to work a couple of years; why, it takes about 5 years to get a residency solid and off the ground. When you’ve worked as hard as we have to build a residency and a virgin hospital that didn’t know really what they were getting into or really know what we were doing and when we started inpatient service, we couldn’t even run a list; they weren’t ready for us. The doctors didn’t want to play; one doctor told us, “we eat what we kill; we don’t want to mess with you.” A year later, we take one out of the rotation and they called us and said, “You can’t do that; we’ve got to have it.  Put her back in the CCU where we can have somebody to help us in there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing)....Yeah...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nOne of the surgeons took a resident and said, “We don’t want to play” and then all the sudden after the first month said, “Why don’t you go back and reapply, apply for a surgery residency, do that, and then come back here.” So, the residents have done that; that’s not us...they are that good.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBut you’ve chosen the residents. \n\n  \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nWe’ve worked very hard at it.....we’ve worked very hard at it and that is a hard six year process.  I’ve probably looked at close to 400-500 applications.... and to look at it adequately, it’s going to take 20-30 minutes per application...this year.  So as soon as September rolls around, we’ll start all over again.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow many of those kids do you think you will place in a rural setting; rural less than 15,000?\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh, we have a good shot at about 20-25% honestly or that’s what I think.  They get quite a bit of hospital medicine, so a number of them are already interested in hospital medicine. We have one that is going to be a hospitalist in Kansas City, it looks like, or St. Louis. We have one doing palliative care.  We’ve got one going to rural Arkansas.  We have another one interested in coming up and doing that; but trying to get that going.  We have Lonoke and so, we have a number of individuals that they didn’t think that they would like that and then once they get use to the rural experience....one of them said, “I didn’t like this and I had to do this every day.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, but you’re dealing with Les Anderson...... (Laughing)....I’m saying that in a very positive sense.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nA very positive way....\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nA very positive way...yeah...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIt has taken a lot of work trying to get the pediatrics for our group especially with Children’s and their educational experience; it makes it really difficult for residency.  So, Dr. Garner and I are trying to figure out how to do that; but we’re just talking about it. I just got a map and took out an old compass, like you had in grade school, and I made it like 30 miles...30 minutes.  I just put it right here and spun it and looked at all the little spots within that 30 minutes and she’d not looked at Lonoke.  She said, “Why would we do that?” and I said, “It’s just rural, they need a doc, Les is getting old, and we might have some relationships there.”  So, we co-called a superintendent and he tried to get us a school-based clinic; but they wouldn’t allow him with the grant system for the way he wanted and where he wanted to put it; so, he was all in and if the local family doc...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIf Les was ok....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nIf the local doc would approve it”.....I said, “Alright you set up a meeting with him and we’ll go check.”  So, he did and we drove out there and walked into the office...”Oh, hi Judy; hi all...how are y’all?  I’m good Les; you doing alright?”  The superintendent blushed a little bit and said, “Oh, alright”....but we sat down and really had a good talk about what that would mean for the community. Les is still interested and he’s been there for so long....Lonoke is important.\n\n      \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nAnd this is the most, I think, reliable sustainable clinic opportunity for Lonoke that they have.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, I think you’re right...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nThat one is our goal; so, it’s been a wonderful opportunity and the school district has been superb, the community has been very supportive, and Les, of course, is great.  It’s doing great with the residents and the staff is put together...its nurses have been there for a while...they’re just really good.  But, we have a new building there that is phenomenal; we got a lot of input on the design of it and so, it’s really functional.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo y’all have any relationship with ARcare, East Arkansas Family Health over in West Memphis, or any other community health centers? \n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh...Les worked for ARcare trying to take care for his patients in the interim of the time that he left CHI until the time that he joined us; so, not much there.  He was straight up with them that he was probably going to be looking for something else and honestly, I have been working this since we started because I thought “what better way to go ahead and maintain sustainability to his practice” and if you have somebody who has been there 40+years, that tells you that they care enough to want to support that in that community and honestly, that is why we’re here.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nWhy am I still working?  Because if I can put.... statistically I can put about 7 or 8 out of 10 residents in Arkansas; so if I can put 8 good docs every year in the state of Arkansas, what impact have I had?....much more than I can do myself and then, I have good well trained docs to take care of my family and friends that I am very comfortable with.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI heard the exact same thing out of Mark Atwood down at Pine Bluff. I heard the same thing out of Lee Parker.....that’s very important.\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\n(Laughing)....Yeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI have two other questions...unless you have other things that you would like to throw into this mix.  You are a really good interviewer because you just get right to the point...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nSorry...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNo, you’re doing perfect; so, if you don’t have anything else, I have two questions I want to ask you.....these were not in the questionnaire that I sent you... \n\n50 years from now, you’re a picture on the wall...\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nNah, it didn’t need to be there....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBut, you will be and your great, great grandchildren will be around.....what would you like for them to know about you?  \n\n\nDr. Elton Cleveland: \n\nUh....what would I like for them to know...huh, well...yeah, I’d like for them to know that I worked hard at trying to be a good man, I worked at trying to be a good member of the church, I worked hard at trying to be a good husband and a good father...but, I enjoy being a good grandfather.  I worked hard at trying to mentor the young physicians to be a well-trained productive individual for the community and I hopefully made a difference for the state of Arkansas; which that would be, I think, the ultimate habitat on anybody’s picture.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThank you, sir; that’s all I got.  I don’t have any more.....that was a great interview.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97658/file/194752#t=0.0,5328.55657"}]}]}]}