{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/m901z43z51/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. James Young"]},"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":["2016-08-23 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Sam Taggart (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["video file"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Rural Medicine","Arkansas","Family Medicine","Family Physician"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["James Young, MD (personal 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/000/293/440/small/JamesYoungM.D.DVD.mp4_1759333287.jpg?1759333289","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - James_Young_M.D._DVD.mp4"]},"duration":6257.83492,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/293/440/small/JamesYoungM.D.DVD.mp4_1759333287.jpg?1759333289","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/293/440/original/James_Young_M.D._DVD.mp4?1759333263","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":6257.83492,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440/transcript/84874","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Dr. James Young interview transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440/transcript/84874/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interview with Dr. James Young  \n\nGood afternoon; my name is Sam Taggart.  I am here in the home of Dr. James Young and his wife, Johnnie, in the country outside of McGehee, Arkansas; a place where Dr. Young has spent most of his adult life.  I wanted to remind you Dr.  Young and Jonnie, both, this is your interview and we are here to document your life and the practice of medicine in McGehee; that’s really kind of what we are here for.  \n\nLet’s start at the obvious place: Where, when, and what were the circumstances of your birth. \n\n“I was actually born in Memphis, Tennessee on November 8, 1945. My mom and dad were living in Augusta, Arkansas and my dad was a pastor of the Baptist Church there.  The church had recently burned down and someway during the war they were still able to get the material and furnishings to rebuild the church, even towards the end of WWII. So, my mom; I was a long anticipated, but slow coming child.  They were married nine years before I was born and had given up; they said that if it had not been for the war, probably they would have already adopted.  But, the war slowed things down till I made my appearance.  I was born in Memphis because that was the closest hospital and my mom was a little older so they feared complications.”\n\nHow old was your mom when you were born?\n\n“My mom was almost 38 at the time that I was born and my dad was 39.  But, it was good.”\n\nAre you an only child?\n\n“I am an only child.  My mom never became pregnant again, but I proved more than challenging enough for the family; so they probably decided that I was as much as they needed.  It’s a good thing; I don’t think they could have afforded more than one of me since I stayed home till I was 26.”\n\nHow long did your family stay in Augusta?\n\n“We moved from Augusta when I was 1 to Pickett.  My dad was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pickett until I was 4 ½ or 5. Then we moved to Fort Worth where he went back and did some post-graduate work at Southwestern Seminary.  He was working on his doctors and we stayed there part of the time in Fort Worth and part of the time with my grandmother in Richardson.  We had a population of 1,600 back then by the way.  Unfortunately just when he was just 18 hours short of getting his PHD, we kind of ran out of money and I was starting school, so he took a church down about 85 miles from Dallas, in the little town of West, Texas and that’s where I started school.  I went there from grades 1-7.”\n\n\nYou mentioned you had some family members; your grandmother, did you have a large extended or close family?\n\n“Yes, oh very close; we weren’t large, but we were very close.  Yeah, my mom grew up in Dallas and she only had one brother.  We were all very close; my cousins and I were very close, there were three boys and a girl.  We were just all close and ended up being about 65 miles apart actually by the time they relocated to the town called Hebron, Texas. ”\n\nIt sounds biblical.\n\n“It was; it was named after the town in Israel and was the place that my mom grew up.  Her grandfather had a 1,000 acre cotton plantation; they called it back then, right there in Hebron with a nice big house.  My grandpa, my grandmother, my mom, and my Uncle Woody all lived right there in the house with my great grandfather for a long time until he walked into Hebron  one day, came back, sat down in his big chair, and passed away.”\n\nHow old was he then?\n\n“You know, I don’t even know how old he was. He was not that old; he was elderly, but not real old.”  \n\nSo what was it like growing up in rural and I’m almost hesitant to say West Texas, because you were Central Texas?\n\n“Well, it was a little town about the size of McGehee actually; the town of West, which was between Waco and Hillsboro.  It was great; I had very close friends.  Schools were exceptional.  They were very tough schools.  We had great teachers who really pushed you to do well.  The children in my school always did very well on standardized testing; it was very good.”\n\nWhere did your family come from as far as migrating from Europe or the East Coast; that kind of thing?\n\n“My mom’s family was mostly English; they came from England to Kentucky and then sometime pre-Civil War, a lot of them came from Kentucky to North Texas and settled there.  We still have my grandmother’s bedroom suite that they brought across on a covered wagon across the Mississippi River on a ferry.  We got that.”\n\n Where they farmers?\n\n“They were farmers, cotton farmers; yes.  They did rather well.  My dad was from Arkansas around the Stephens-Magnolia area and he always, when I ask him; my mother was referring to her ancestors coming from England and when I asked dad, “Where did your ancestors come from?”  He said, “Well no where; they met the boat.”  He claimed a pretty high percentage of Native Americans; Cherokee.”    \n\n\nDid you ever see any proof of that?\n\n“Just by his sister; his sister was the historian of the family and she, before her death, did give me a bit of a run down on the family tree.  But, I never really pursued it that much.”\n\nTalk a little bit about the memories of your childhood; especially when you become cognizance of your life, 4-5 years of age up to about 10-11 before you go through puberty.  Talk about your memories of that time and the people that you played with; you mentioned your cousins.  \n\n“Yeah, but I had some good friends n West that I started to school with and we did all the usual things.  Of course my dad being the pastor of the church, we had a great big lawn out in front of the church that was the neighborhood football field; we always played tackle to the ground football too, sandlot football.  It was rough, but I loved football.  I had a lot of very close friends.”\n\nDid you ever ask your father how he ended up in ministry?\n\n“You know, I asked him; I remember we were at my uncle’s house, my dad’s brother, in Stephens and actually it came up there.  I said, “You know; well dad, how did you get called into the ministry?”  My uncle just laughed and chuckled and said, “The Lord called your dad to the ministry when he was in a harness plowing with a mule. “  My dad just shook his head and laughed.  So, I never brought the subject back up.  My dad from a very young age felt like he was being called into the ministry.  When he finished high school at a little place called Mt. Holley, he borrowed $25.00 and hitchhiked to Arkadelphia and enrolled in Ouachita Baptist College at that time.  He got a job waiting tables in the cafeteria.”\n\nWhat year would that have been?\n\n“About 1935.”   \n\nBefore I forget, what is your father’s full name and your mother’s name and maiden name?\n\n“My mother’s full name was Laura Isabelle Everett and my dad’s full name was James Olive Young.  He was named for a Baptist minister.”\n\nJohnnie, what was your maiden name?\n\n“My maiden name was Rose.”\n\n And where was your home town?\n\n“I grew up in a little town called Dirk’s; it’s a lumber town.  I was born in Texarkana, which is just probably 60 miles south of that.  Dirk’s was \n\n\nowned by a family named Dirks at that time and my dad was a machinist.  He repaired all the machines in this large sawmill, so I spent most of my growing up years there.”    \n\nDid you have any particular interest in school; academics or sports?\n\n“Up through Junior High; it was understood by my mother that I would excel in school.  It wasn’t like I; it wasn’t, “Do the best you can.” It was like “You’re going to do well; you’re intelligent enough” and it wasn’t one of those, “Don’t let me down,” she just assumed that I was going to do well.  It was a very competitive atmosphere actually in Central Texas; out there, you were not looked down upon as being a nerd or being bright or the head of your class.  I loved sports; I loved football and baseball.  I never was much into basketball in Junior High, but I loved sports.”   \n\nWere there any subjects or areas in school that you particularly enjoyed or it just really caught your interests?            \n\n“Oh, Science; without a doubt.  Science was my favorite subject.  At the time, I did not like history, which is a shame; that’s my favorite subject now.  I just kind of endured English, which I didn’t care much for either.  The math early in grade school and in Junior High came pretty simply for me; I didn’t have any great difficulty with early math like I was going to in later years.”\n\nDid you have an extended group of friends when you were in school; Junior or High School, and had you stayed in contact with them?\n\n“Yes I did; but not in a long time.  The last contact I really had was one of my good friends actually came into my life later; his father was the principal of the high school there and he moved there I guess right after our 6th grade year and we only went to school together that one year in 7th grade, his name was Lewis Ford.  A number of years later, I got a call from Lew Ford wanting me to be in his wedding; so, that was right after I finished college.  I made arrangements and he was marrying a girl that had been a friend of mine back then and a close friend of our families.  They wanted my dad to perform the wedding ceremony, so that was great.  We went back out in 1968 to West, Texas and my dad performed the ceremony.  I was in Lewis and Linda’s wedding.  He has just finished Rice at the time getting a degree in Physical Chemistry.  When I said that I was expected to excel in school, I always did excel really well until Lewis Ford moved onto the scene.  Lewis ford insisted on ruining the curve; there wasn’t that much curve to look at after Lewis.  Lewis was extremely bright.  He was to go on to Harvard and get a PHD in Physical Chemistry and then to be a professor at Texas A\u0026M.  As far as I know, he is still there, but I haven’t heard from him now in several years.”   \n\nAt what point during your teenage years did you start thinking about what you wanted to do when you grew up; what you wanted to be, where you wanted to live; those types of things?\n\n\n“I already knew what I wanted to be.”\n\nAt what age?\n\n“I’d say 8 or 9.”\n\n Was there anybody in your family that either pushed you in that direction or somebody who you looked up to?\n\n“No, actually I had a close friend named James Riddle there at West; he was a year old than I was. We weren’t in the same class, but we went to church together and we both decided that we just really wanted to be physicians.  Unfortunately, James’ father became chronically ill and he had to alter his plans.  But I saw him just as I was going into medical school when I went back from my friend, Lewis’ wedding; I did see James Riddle and was able to visit with him.  He was working for General Motors in Detroit at the time.  He had finished college, but he said that he would never make it to medical school.”  \n\nDo you remember recording any of your memories when you were a kid; writing them own?\n\n“No; I don’t think so.  My dad borrowed a camera one time, an 8mm movie camera and took one roll of film; which I think still exists here somewhere; I’m not sure where it is, but no we just didn’t do that.  My dad never did talk much about his childhood; you just had to kind of pry it out of him and his brother was better at that than any one.  Now, my mom did; she liked to talk about her childhood.  As a matter of fact, we still have her grandmother’s diary.  There are some notations in there from January 1, 1900; so, we still have it.”\n\nSo what was it about medicine that made you want to become a physician?\n\n“You know, I’m not sure; I loved science.  Now, I know that the man that intrigued me most was a Jewish doctor in Waco, Texas named Dr. Jaworski; he did a lot of surgery.  I’m not sure actually if he was a general surgeon; back then though, even general surgeons did a lot of general medicine.  He did a lot of medicine.  There were two doctors who were there in West that I remember I thought, “Wow these guys live a pretty tough life.” because mom thought it nothing to call them at 2:00am when I got croup and they would show up.  They would show up like that.”      \n\nWere you ever sick to where you had to go to the hospital?  Did that influence you?\n\n“I had my tonsils out, but that was it.”\n\nDid you ever consider the ministry?\n\n“No, I never felt called by the ministry.”\n\n\n\nWhat about medial missionaries?\n\n“Well, we do volunteer missions now.”\n\nBut did you ever consider medical missionaries back then?\n\n“Not really, I think it did cross my mind maybe when I was in college preparing for medical school; but no.  After I really decided the direction that I wanted to go, I just considered Southeast Arkansas my mission-field.”   \n\nYou lived in Pickett though?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nHow did you get from Pickett to McGehee?\n\n“Well, that was of course 9 years in central Texas, West; and after that my dad accepted a church at Fouke.”\n\nNow where was Hebron during this?\n\n“I never lived at Hebron; my mom grew up in Hebron.  No, unfortunately the family had lost all the 1000 acre farm in the depression.  As a matter of fact, there is a huge shopping center there with a Neiman Marcus right there now.  But they lost everything except 2 ½ acres and the farm house during the depression.” \n\nWhen you came from med school, did you come from McGehee or Pickett?\n\n“Neither; after we left central Texas and went to Fouke, I finished high school there.  Now my last year at Fouke, my dad accepted the church at Arkansas City.  I finished school at Fouke though; I moved in with one of my friends, the Hensleys.  I finished school at Fouke and then joined my mom and dad in Arkansas City.  All the time I was in college and medical school, Arkansas City was home.” \n\nWhat year did you graduate from high school?\n\n“1964.”\n\nAt what point did you start thinking about, “Ok, here’s what I want to do?” Obviously, your mother’s expectations were “You’re going to do well and you’re going to go on and do something.”  Thinking about where you would go to college because apparently if you were going to college was out of the question.\n\n “No, it wasn’t a question.  All the time I was growing up at West, I assumed that I would be going to Baylor.  I went to all the Baylor football games.  I was a Baylor Bear fan; my dad taught \n\n\nme to pull for Baylor all the way unless they were playing the Arkansas Razorbacks; then he said, “Then, we’re not for Baylor.”  My dad taught me at an early age to be a razorback.  But after we moved back to Arkansas, I’m not sure at what point in time I decided that I would go to Ouachita; but that was where my dad had gone.  It just became the thing; there was never a doubt in my mind my senior year that that was where I was going.  It’s interesting, I never sent in an application and I never inquired about what it would cast.  I never inquired about anything.  The day after graduation, my mom, dad, and I went to Arkadelphia and I walked into the administration building and told them I wanted to go to college there.”\n\nWhat was their response?\n\n“Oh, they were thrilled; it was fine.”\n\nWhat kind of grade point did you have in high school?\n\n“Oh, it wasn’t quite a 4.0, because there was one girl that beat me.  My issue when I left West and moved to Fouke was that West had been an extremely hard school with a very high academic standard.  Nothing against Fouke, but to be honest it was not in the same category; thereby my studying fell dramatically.  My study habits were neglected; most of my studying was done with a book on my lap while watching TV.  I was still able to make good grades, but I didn’t do nearly as well at Fouke as I had done at West because I wasn’t pushed.  My math background was just terrible; we just didn’t have the math available.  They didn’t offer plain geometry at Fouke until a friend of mine, Gary Robin, and I said; “You’ve got to start offering geometry because we want to take math in college.”  So, they hired an ex prison guard, a retired prison guard, from Texarkana to come down and teach geometry.  He hadn’t taught geometry in 30 years, but anyway I took the course.”          \n\nWere there any teachers, family members, adults in the community, or other older people who had a big impact on you either in junior high or high school; during that time frame of your life?\n\n“Oh sure, sure; you know, I’m thankful of them today.  There was this one couple at West who had no children and they were my mom and dad’s age; mid to late 40s, and they loved to fish.  So, we took many fishing trips together; of course, none of us on the boat, we would just fish off the bank or some boat houses around Lake Whitney out from Waco.  They were a great influence on my life.  My friend, James Riddle that I mentioned earlier, his parents were an influence on my life.  There were a number of people; Sunday school teachers and just the people in general that just really did help me and tried to mold me.  I was very close to my parents.  My dad and I were best buddies.  We hunted and fished together all the time; he could come to my football practices and he would come to my baseball practices.  Of course he never missed a game, but he’d come to my practices even.  He’d say, “You know, you should have \n\n\ngotten down a little bit lower on that grounder,” but yet Johnnie can tell you, he was not a very strict disciplinarian really; he was kind of a big ole teddy bear.  He and I were best buds.” \n\nWith you, did he need to be?\n\n“I was really, looking back, a pretty good kid.  I gave very little trouble.”\n\nWere you headstrong?\n\n“I prefer to think of it as persistent.  My wife sometimes refers to it as stubborn.”\n\nDid you work during high school or during college?\n\n“I worked summers during high school on farms hauling hay, hauling wheat, driving a tractor and then one year I was fortunate enough to get on at the school.  We were remodeling a portion of the high school and l was lucky enough to get a job doing that; it paid $1.00 an hour, which was just wonderful back then.  In college, I worked.  The day I got to college a professor who had grown up at Arkansas City, whose dad had pastured the Arkansas City Church and whose mom still taught school there, by the name of Ken Sanderfur told me to come see him.  I came to see him and I didn’t even get back to the dorm; he said, “Come, we need to go to work.” He put me to work and that first year at Ouachita, I worked about 40 hours a week for him in the biology department.”             \n\nYou said, “When you went off to college there wasn’t any question on how much this is going to cost; you didn’t apply, you just decided to go and you went.  Did your parents pay for college or did you end up paying for it?  Did you just make your own spending money?\n\n“No, I paid for it.  My allowance was $5.00 a week.  Then after two years at Ouachita, Vietnam was raging; so, I went ahead and signed up for advanced ROTC.  At least if something happened and I was not able to get into medical school, at least I would go in as an officer, which I thought sounded better.  I didn’t really mind the military, so I did that and they paid me $40.00 a month.  I took that money and bought a car.  In college during the summers, I surveyed with the _______conservation.”\n\nWhen you got through college, did you owe any money?\n\n“Oh yes, but nothing like the kids now days.  I did, I think Johnnie and I; I got a deferment while I was in medical school and I didn’t have to pay my college loans back, so we both saved our money and when we left John Peter Smith in Fort Worth later, which I will get to, we paid all our college loans off.  I don’t think Johnnie had very many; she worked her way through college and I don’t think she had many loans to pay off.”      \n\n How did you meet?\n\n\n“Well, we met professionally and we met personally.  We met personally first at a party given by one of my nursing classmates.  The story….”\n\nIn what year?\n\n“Well, I started school; the last two years of my ….”\n\n“It was January ’70.”\n\n“Yes, it was January ’70 and the story was that “If you survive the first semester of nursing school at UAMS, which was med-surgical, you were going to make it.” They deliberately wanted to weed out those who were not going to make it.  They stated that on the front in to us and so those of us who did make it and a few who did not, we decided that we were going to throw a party because we had done nothing but work the entire first semester.  So, we threw a party and James showed up and we met at this party, but the story that I love is when we met and worked together for the first time professionally.  I was a student and I got assigned to the intensive care nursery at UAMS, that is my rotation that week, and it just so happened that his rotation was also the intensive care nursery.  I will never forget this; I walked in there and they said, “We have 12 babies, there were 14 babies in this unit, but we have 12 babies that the medical student needs to do a femoral vein stick for lab studies.  My job was to assist as you had to position the babies a certain way and be very still; you know, so I had to really do some big assisting.  We went from bassinet to bassinet and did our 12 sticks and this man did not miss one.  As those of us in the field know, that’s not that easy a procedure to do and I don’t know how many he had done before.  I just remember thinking as I was labeling those blood tubes to take to the lab and he had already left to do something else; I remember thinking, “This man is really good.” \n\n“I was a junior student and she was junior nursing student.” \n\nNow let’s go back to college; what were your favorite things that you really enjoyed in college in terms of academics, social life, or all those kinds of things?\n\n“Unfortunately when was in college, my work and my academics kept getting in the way of my social life.  Now, I had a decent social life; I had some very close friends, especially the people in \n\n\nthe old dorm.  We got; I was part of the first baby boomers to go to Ouachita.  There were about twice as many people in my freshman class than they ever had at Ouachita and they had to put us in an old dorm that my dad stayed in.  So, we were put out and it was so bad that we decided that we would just all make the best of it.  There were five of us that were very close; James, Jim, john, Joe, and another Jim, the 5-J’s.”\n\n“Yeah, there were 5-J’s; that’s what we called them.”\n\nSo what about teaches in college; you mentioned one guy who gave you a job.  Were there some people who were really pushed you in one direction or the other? \n\n“Oh yes; there were about four, or really three, that come to mind of my professors that really pushed me.  Kenneth Sanderfur was my biology, my major professor; he pushed me.  He pushed me; he was great, but he was firm.  Dr. Wayne Ebbert in the chemistry department, he pushed me; he did and it was good.”\n\nWho taught organic at that point?\n\n“Dr. Porpine; in fact, he taught organic when my dad went to Ouachita.  Dr. Alex Nesbit, who was a character of characters, was a very good teacher and I only had him for one course of quantum analysis.  That was one of the most difficult courses in college and it was great; I went in there every day with a lump in my throat, but I loved it and was able to master it.  One of my roommates, one of the Jims and the John of these 5-Js I’m talking about, there was another one that was a biology major, John Lunnon from Mountain Home and then Jim Fellond who ended up being one of the most successful orthodontist in Little Rock.  He and I were bosom buddies, so we all pushed each other and studied together.  For a long time, we pushed each other.”\n\nSo what kind of degree did you get in college?\n\n“I got a Double Major in biology and chemistry.”\n\nObviously you had already been thinking since you were 8 years old that you were going to be a doctor; at what point did you start thinking seriously, “What am I going to have to do to make this come true?” \n\n“Oh, I had been thinking about this; the only problem was like I said was that I was a bit of a procrastinator back then before my wife taught me otherwise.  You know what my goal was was to study just hard enough in college to make the grades to get into medical school and so, sometimes I did exactly what I set out to do but then sometimes I tend to let subjects that I did not care for slide a little bit.  Then, I’d have to really hustle when it came time for finals and stuff.  I knew what I wanted to do and I knew that I needed to do whatever was necessary to the point that, back then and I don’t know how it was later, but when I took the MCAT, they did not give you your scores. When I took the MCAT the first time, I didn’t have any idea how well I \n\n\nscored except that I knew the vocabulary had eaten my lunch.  I didn’t know but one out of three words and I knew that the math; I did not do well with the math as I had not had any math since my freshman year. So, I was serious enough that I said, “You know, I’m going to have to do something to get my math score up.”  So, I said, “You know, I got some extra hours here so I’m just going to take analytic geometry and calculus.”  So as a senior, I jumped into analytic geometry and calculus; I didn’t have a lot of fun with it.  I was able to study with Cliff Harris who was able to put it to a lot more use than I was later by trying to figure out the trajectory of those balls coming down.  I waded through calculus and I went back and took the MCAT the second time and came out of there knowing that I aced the math.  I felt like I aced the science all the time.  Of course at Ouachita, you took art music appreciation, so I had a lot of humanities and came out feeling real good about the MCAT except for the vocabulary again.  But, I guess I did ok, I got accepted.”\n\nSo you graduate from college when?\n\n“I did graduate college in ’68.”\n\nYou finished your ROTC on time as well?\n\n“I did. I got commissioned in the Medical Service Corp and they gave me; they told me that I could have 5 years; it’s what they told me, off to complete my education.  Of course back then, family practice residency was just 2 years at John Peter Smith.   I had finished medical school on Sunday, graduated; the following Saturday, I married Johnnie Rose, and the following week after that, we departed for Fort Worth and John Peter Smith.”           \n\nWe need to talk about medical school.  So, you got accepted with no problem and started in September of …..\n\n“1968.”\n\nWhat was your impression of that first semester of medical school?\n\n“Intimidating.  You know, I remember I just felt like it was very hard.  I felt just a bit overwhelmed, but it was stuff that I was really enjoying.  So, I just dug right in.  I studied six nights a week usually six hours a day.  You mentioned Jim Russell, the same Jim Russell that lived across the hall from me at","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440#t=0.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440/transcript/84874/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"pm every night, Jim Russell and I would go play either pool or ping pong for an hour.  Then, I would come back and study for 2-3 more hours after that.”\n\nDid you live at Jeff Banks?\n\n“I lived at the End of Dawn.” \n\nWhen did you move to the BSU house?\n\n\n“My sophomore year.  You know the first year was terrible and I can remember I thought, “You know, I just really don’t see how I’m going to get through this. I think I’m probably going to flunk out.”  And then I was talking to a gentleman in our class that was just a really very brainy guy; his name was Tony Anderson, I don’t know where he ended up; but, anyway we were talking and he made the comment, “I just really don’t know how I’m going to get through this.”  So, I figured out right then, I said, “Hey, we’re all in the same boat; this is intimidating for everybody.”\n\nDid you have any teachers during that first two years that really stand out in your mind or had a big impact on you?\n\n“No, they all scared me.  You know, I felt the first two years they were all rather intimidating, but I enjoyed the second year; it was a different story.  After the first year, to be honest, it was just pretty much all over.  After the first year, the pressure was off, it was enjoyable, that’s when I moved into the BSU House, we studied micro and parasitology, which I had a wonderful parasitology course at Ouachita and I had no trouble getting through parasitology. You know, it was just nice to have a little relaxation.  Then the second semester, I did two big things; I started pathology and I met Johnnie.  It didn’t matter; I loved pathology and Robin Jones was the big pathology professor back then and he was kind of a favorite.”\n\nHe was flamboyant.\n\n“He was flamboyant.  He was flamboyant in his purple pants, canary yellow shirts, and everything.  He was good though and got the point across.  We had some very, very, good professors at that second year.  The ones in the first year were good; it’s just like I say, I just wasn’t ever sure if they were there to help me or throw me out, you know.”             \n\nWhat are your fondest memories of medical school? \n\n“Oh gee, fondest memories would probably go in the third and fourth years; yeah, without a doubt.  We had a great group.  It was an alphabetical thing and Larry Watkins from Hamburg, a big razorback football player; he and I always got push together because of the “W” and “Y.”  We had some great times.”\n\nWho else were the guys that you rotated with?\n\n“There was a fellow named Harold Valp and I think Steve Tilley was in our group too...”\n\nWho was at your cadaver table?\n\n“Now that’s another story; we had a bad deal with a cadaver.  They gave them out once again in alphabetical order and by the time they got down to the “Y”s, our cadaver was just absolutely horrible; it was in terrible shape.  They put me on with a fellow named Jim Wolf, Sandy Young \n\n\n(no ken either) and a fellow by the name of Yarbrough that bless his heart only made it the first year.  At Thanksgiving, they moved us.  They put our cadaver up with a lid on him and never took it off; he was in that bad a shape.  Then I got moved over with an interesting group; Kingslie Boast and Blake Berry.  Blake was a very colorful gentleman and Kingslie was a good guy.  We finished the year out with a nice cadaver; it was one of the creams of the crop.  There was one cadaver that was much better than any of them and they put him at the very end of the line for the grad students.”        \n\nLet’s talk about the decision making process of going into rural medicine and rural health;  you obviously have been raised in a number of small communities in Arkansas and Texas both, did  that have an impact on you going into rural medicine?\n\n“I’m sure; but you know when I told you that I wanted to go into medicine and I had decided at about age 8-9, I wanted to be a country doctor.  That’s the only thing I ever really thought about.  The only thing I ever considered just briefly was general surgery and I put that out of my mind pretty rapidly.  The only reason I had thought that was I had seen general surgeons who we able to practice in such small communities, but no.  No, it was just very briefly; I wanted to be a rural practitioner from age 8 or 9.”\n\n Now your parents lived in Arkansas City during this time frame.\n\n“Yes.”\n\nDid you ever think about going to Arkansas City?  It’s only 8 miles away.\n\n“Right, but it’s just too small to support a physician.”\n\nWhat stimulated you to go to Fort Worth for your training?\n\n“I just heard a lot of good things about the family practice program there.  It was everything that we were told it was and the gentleman that I am in practice with right now was out there at the time, Bob Prosper.”\n\nDidn’t Sandy Lattage go with you?\n\n“Sandy Lattage; yeah, there were six of us.  Yes, Sandy Lattage did go with us.  It was quite a group; Lynn Norman, Lonnie Erwin, Don Dunn.”\n\nWhat was your experience like; did you see a lot?\n\n“It was so busy I can’t even describe it.  I kind of blotted it out; but, yes it was extremely busy.  You know, they treated us very, very well.  There were hardly any residents running around except for the prim of the practice residents.  There were some fifth year surgery residents that came from Parkland and Baylor, some orthopedic residents, and some oral surgery \n\n\nresidents; that was it.  There were no other residents there except for the family practice residents, so we pretty well had free rein to do what we felt comfortable doing.”\n\nYou said earlier that the Army gave you five years.\n\n“Yes.”\n\nSo you set yourself up for six.\n\n“Right; well it didn’t work out.  About the end, or well half way through my first year; I got a letter from the Army that said, “Come take a physical.”  So I went and got my physical and then I got a call from some physicians in Lake Village who said, “Hey, I hear that you’re going into the Army.”  I said, “Well, I’m afraid so; I have already taken their money and I got to do it.”  They said, “Well if we get you out, will you come to Lake Village for two years?”  I said, “Yes, I will do that.”\n\nWho were those physicians?\n\n“Dr. Burge and Dr. Burge.”\n\nI’ve heard of the Burges.\n\n“Then there was a gentleman from Dumas who wasn’t a physician, but he said, “We’ve heard you’re going into the Army.  If we get you out of the Army, will you come to Dumas for two years?”  I said, “Yes Sir, I’d do that.  I have already told Lake Village the same thing, but I don’t think that this is going to happen.”  They said, “Oh, we know Oren Harris and yeah, we can do it.”  Well, it wasn’t happening and then one day I had worked all night and I was sleeping and Johnnie had worked all day.  Johnnie, tell them what happened.”\n\n“This was in the winter of ’73 and I knew that we were going to get orders from the military soon.  He had worked horrible hours and was on duty at John Peter Smith for 36 hours and was off 12; that was his schedule the whole year, so it was very grueling.  He was asleep and I came home and opened the mailbox at our little apartment that we lived in and there was that red, white, and blue trimmed envelop and I knew what I held in my hand.  They had asked him previously to put down states that he would prefer to be stationed in and he had written Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and whatever; you know very close by states.  I opened that up and read before I even walked in and they were sending him officially to the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  I went screeching and screaming into the bedroom and woke him up saying, “We’re going to Pine Bluff.”\n\n\n“It said you are hereby going to be an assistant post-surgeon of the US Army Health Clinic, Pine Bluff Arsenal, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  I called the people at Dumas and said, “I’m going into the Army.”  I called the people at Lake Village and said, “I’m going into the Army.”   I showed up and they allowed me to count that family practice clinic time as the second year of my residency.  Then I had to go take boards, but the Army supervised me and I was able to pull that off.”          \n\nSo you did your second year of residency in the army and that counted?\n\n“Right.”\n\nThen you came to Lake Village?\n\n“No, then I came to McGehee.  Well after that in my second year  at the arsenal, which was absolutely the best two years of our lives, we had a wonderful experience in the Army; great friends and a wonderful little family practice clinic.” \n\nWhat did you do as a participant?\n\n“Family practice and industrial medicine and flown in toxicology because we were sitting on enough nerve gas to wipe out the whole of Arkansas in one fail swoop.  So, we had a lot of training in that out of the Edgewood Arsenal.  We just would go out and put on our little chemical warfare suits and go out to examine the igloos and go on all these drills; but basically it was a great life.” \n\n So did you live in Pine Bluff?\n\n“At the Arsenal; oh yeah, 3,000 square ft. house jut the two of us.  We had a great time; 30,000 acres of deer woods and 19 fishing lakes.”\n\nSo one of the questions I always ask is are there anything different or unique about being here.  Was there anything, other than what you are saying, unusual or odd about being at the Pine Bluff Arsenal?  Were there any illnesses that you saw that you might not see in other places?\n\n“Well, snake bites; I’ve not seen very much of since I got here.  Other than the fact that one day one of the workers got a hold of some hallucinogens and they found him wondering around Pine Bluff as he didn’t know where his truck was.  We had to put him in a padded cell, which was better than the alternative.  We had two special places in our clinic, one was a padded cell and the other was a human autoclave; because that had also been the germ warfare center for the US Army.  We did have a human autoclave in case anyone got hold of the Anthrax; they would just roll them in an autoclave them.  Thank the Lord it was gone before I got there.  But our arsenal was great.  There was Dr. James Patterson who graduated at Tulane and was really what I considered near genius.  When I’d got out hunting or fishing, he’d be building parts for \n\n\ngrandfather clocks and doing gourmet cooking.  He was the other physician there and then the lawyer was a fellow by the name of Mike Gipson who became a very successful…” \n\nSo the years you were there were when?\n\n“1973-1975.”      \n\n“It was while I was there that the McGehee people really started courting heavily.  Mom and dad still lived at Arkansas City and McGehee was the closest town to Arkansas City; I loved Arkansas City.  We had some great friends at Arkansas City.  My good buddies, the McCauley’s, were over there that hunted with for years.  So, it just felt right to move to McGehee; so, Dr. Prosser and I built the McGehee family Clinic and it opened up as soon as I got out of the Army in August; well he was actually there a little bit before I was.  I got there in August of 1975.”\n\nAnd you didn’t go into practice with the two doctors you talked about earlier?\n\n“That’s right; no, there were two other doctors here.  Dr. Price was practicing with Dr. Swan Moss and then there was Dr. Lonnie Turney here.  No, we built the clinic just the two of us.  Like I said, Dr. Price had been at Peter Smith for two years just before I got there and we just felt like we were trained alike and felt like we were compatible to practice.\n\nDid you have a hospital in McGehee?\n\n“Yes, we had a hospital and they built a new wing just right after I got here.”\n\nHow many beds were there?\n\n“Oh, I think at that time like 19.”\n\nWhat is it now?\n\n“25; we just opened a new hospital last month.” \n\n Do you have an ICU or send them on?\n\n“No.”\n\n So you send them somewhere else; where to?\n\n“Pine Bluff or Little Rock.”\n\nWhen you first came here out of the service, were you surprised by anything in setting up the practice; you and Dr. Prosser had already started setting up and establishing the practice, staff, and all that stuff.  Were you surprised at any of the stuff that you had to go through to get your practice going? \n\n\n“The business part drove us crazy with lawyers and getting all the tax structure.  We decided to form a corporation and it got pretty complicated.  I never really enjoyed the business part and still don’t.  You know, I like seeing patients; that’s what I enjoyed in ’75 and what I enjoy in 2016.”\n\nWhat was your work schedule like when you first came into practice in McGehee?    \n\n“It was terrible. They were starting to build the paper mill out there and we would show up at the hospital about 7:00 or 7:30 and then spend an hour to an hour and half there.  We’d come back to see patients till about","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440#t=600.0,750.0"},{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440/transcript/84874/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"or 1:00, then we took off from 1:00-2:00 for lunch, came back to see patients till about 5:30 or so, and then usually go back and make rounds again.  I was living in town at that time.  We were delivering babies, obstetrics, some little surgical procedures; appendectomies and of course our own C-Sections and tubals.”\n\nYou were trained to do those at Peter Smith.\n\n“Oh, we did.  John Peter Smith taught a lot of procedures because there were no surgery residents and they didn’t want to do it.  There were no OB residents; they didn’t want to do C-sections.   You know, all there was was just the family practice residency.  I don’t know how many we did, but we did a lot.” \n\nSo how did you do financially that first few years?\n\n“Not great; I made $1,000 a month.”\n\nDid you have a lot of loans from going through medical school?  You had mentioned that you paid your college off early. \n\n“No, I became part of some type of program that I don’t even remember what it was; some type of rural practice program even back then that if you stayed in the town that is considered a doctor shortage area for like 5 years or maybe 10, you’re loans were forgiven.”\n\n“It was 10.”\n\n“So, I paid back very little.”\n\nDo you enjoy your practice then?\n\n“Oh yeah, sure; I have always enjoyed it.  Like I said, I have never really cared much for the business part of it, but as far as just the patients and dealing with the patients, oh yeah.”\n\nWas there any part of it that scared you?\n\n“Oh yeah, obstetrics.  It was always scary right up to the moment of truth.  The main reason is because a lot of times Dr. Prosser would be gone.  I’d be there by myself and what if we had to do \n\n\na c-section; who was going to help me?   I’d have to try and find Dr. Moss or Dr. Turney, but you know that was just not always that easy.  It was just one of those things that were a little scary.”\n\nDid you do anesthesia?\n\n“We had a nurse anesthetist.  As far as OB anesthesia, I did all my own spinals; pudendals  and then we started gradually doing a little bit of semi-twilight.  We never gave a lot of heavy drugs.  We did that for 14 years.  Johnnie never got into that part.  She did a lot of pre-partum and post-partum care, but she never really cared for the delivery room.”\n\nYou had mentioned earlier that Johnnie had been your nurse for like 14-15 years.\n\n“Yes; 14 years.”\n\nThat’s a lot of time together every day.\n\n“We spent many, many, hours together.  We worked hand and glove; I could read his mind about 80% of the time, absolutely.”\n\nDid you enjoy the work?\n\n“Absolutely; like him, I knew by the time I was a very small child that I was going to be a nurse.  That was just an ache that I don’t know how and no one in my family had ever done anything like that.  I was the first in my family to ever go to college.   Just to this day, there is something about putting my hands on sick people that just does it for me.   So, we worked extremely well together for those 14 years.”\n\nSometime during this, you had a daughter?\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“We did.”\n\n“We decided to have our first baby in; what year was that, I can’t remember.”\n\n“It was 1976.”\n\n“Yeah, she was due on…”\n\n“February 2nd“\n\n\n“Yeah; February 2, 1977 was my due date, but I went into premature labor.  It was a placenta priva and she was born 12 weeks early.  It was really touch and a very long time.”\n\nWere you here?\n\n“Yes.”    \n\n“Yes, we were here; well actually, I was gone.”\n\n“It’s a good story.”\n\n“I was enjoying my first day of deer hunting at my new deer camp.  You know, thinking that I still had three months to get ready for my daughter’s arrival and little did I know; luckily my mom, I guess I was lucky, my mom was here with Johnnie and my dad was with me on Cock Island, which is 17 miles from here if a crow flies.  It’s 90 miles if you drive; very, very, difficult and no communication at all, way, way, way before cell phones.  They finally got me word of what had happened by a sea of recent people crossing the Mississippi River in a boat and then another group in a sheriff’s patrol car waiting for me on the other side of the river; anyway, it took a lot of divine intervention to get me out that day, but they did get me out.  By that time, Dr. Price had already insisted the baby was way too little to have at McGehee, Arkansas, so he had sent Johnnie to Pine Bluff by ambulance.  There was an OB/GYN doc by the name of Virgil Hayden that was new in Pine Bluff and they rolled in and he saw her.  He told her, “You know, Johnnie, we are probably just going through the motions here; I don’t think this baby will weigh 1lb.”  They called for a pediatrician and the pediatrician that was on call was a very reliable pediatrician, but they couldn’t find him.  He was not to be found anywhere.  There was a young guy named Dan McKinney that was one of the first people delivering at the BSU House that came on board.  Dan McKinney had just moved to Pine Bluff and he was on his way out to lunch when they grabbed him.  They said, “Dr. McKinney, you need to go to labor and delivery; there is a premi coming.”  He came to the door and there was Johnnie and she said, “Hi, Dan.” After he picked his teeth up off the ground, he runs and looks at little Jennifer who by the way at bore 8-9 and cleans her up and started an arterial line.  I showed up about that time and rode in the ambulance with her to Little Rock where she was put in intensive care nursery where Johnnie and I did all the femoral vein sticks.”\n\n“That was déjà vu to stand there on the very spot where I had done things as a student and look at my child in that little isolate.  She weighed 2lb 10oz at birth.”\n\n“2 lbs 9 ½ oz.”                 \n\n\n\n“She lost down to 2 lbs 2oz her 3 weeks she was down in acute there.  Then they moved her to Jefferson Hospital after three weeks and we spent three more weeks there.  Simply because we were medical people, they left us bring her home when she weighed 3lbs 12oz.  I did nursing care 24-7; I did not go out of our house for 5 months.  People wanted to see her and I would say, “No, you can’t” this is in the dead of winter and I’d say, “We can’t have any infections.”  We had a plate glass window and I would show the baby to everyone through the window.  After 5 months, she was pretty ok and was doing extremely well.”        \n\n Her name is what?\n\n“Jennifer Elaine.”\n\nAnd she was born?\n\n“November 8th on my birthday.”\n\n“On his birthday.”\n\n“1976.”\n\nSo she is 40 and I think you said that she is a lawyer?\n\n“A lawyer and a pharmacist; she got a law degree and practiced law for a while and didn’t like it.  She called me one day and said, “I’m miserable; everyone who comes to see me is mad and I don’t even like other lawyers.” I said, “Well, what are you going to do babe?” She said, “I’m going to pharmacy school.”  You know, she went and borrowed the money and put herself through pharmacy school and now is the hospital pharmacist at Monticello Hospital.”\n\nIs she married?\n\n“She is married.”\n\nDoes she have children?\n\n“Step son.”\n\n“We have one grandson, Jake; he is 15 now.  We love our son in law; he is just a precious guy.”\n\nIs she an only child?\n\n“No.”\n\n\n“No, we had a son in 1981 who was killed at the age of 14.  But, she does not act like an only child; she is very hard working, a very goal oriented person, and does extremely well.”\n\nLet’s talk a little bit about your medical records; when you first started practicing medicine, what kind of medical records did you keep?\n\n“What do you mean when I first started?”\n\nDid you use 4x5 cards or charts?\n\n“No, I still have my original charts.  I still see people every week who has a chart from 1975.  Three times; we have all the EMR and bought all the computers and three different times now we’ve started going into it and each time a flu epidemic hit and we found it a lot more important to see 40-50 people a day with the flu than us to see 20 and get everything in the electronic medical records.  So, we’re still in the process of converting over.  Now, the hospital has completely converted over.  Everything at the hospital is completely computerized, but we are still working out of the same charts that we opened back in 1975.  Johnnie’s writing is in a lot of them.” \n\nDo you think you’ll ever make the complete transition?\n\n“Oh yeah, we’re going to have to because they are building us a new clinic, but we’ll get to that in a minute.”\n\nSo besides your nurse, what kind of office staffing did you have when you first went into practice?                                \n\n“Oh my goodness; of course Dr. Prosser had a nurse.  We had one girl who did lab and x-ray, we had one girl that did insurance and kind of managed the front, and we had one person who was a receptionist and answered the phone; that was it.  I think we’re about up to like 15 now.”\n\nHow many physicians?\n\n“Still two; Dr. Prosser and myself are the only two here now.” \n\nHow many doctors are in McGehee?\n\n“There are three doctors and a nurse practitioner.”\n\nAre they all men?\n\n“No, the nurse practitioner is female; the physicians are all male.”\n\nDuring your first few years in the practice of medicine; were you involved in the community at all; school boards, United Way, Heart Association; those types of things? \n\n\n“You know, more or less, I was involved with church.  You know, you’re not able to be as much involved in the community as you would like when you work 60-70 hours a week. So, we did things.  We went to special events and things. But I didn’t serve on a lot of counsels and things like that; we were just too busy.”\n\nWhat one thing, or maybe a series of things, has changed the practice of medicine most in our time during practice; technology, attitudes, or EMRs? \n\n“Let’s leave the EMRs out of it because that’s not my favorite subject.  You know, of course the whole spectrum of medicine, as far as knowledge goes, has changed.  We’re so much more knowledgeable now and so much as been discovered.  The technology is just unbelievable in a lot of fields and it just still amazes me.  Now, we don’t have as much of it available here; but even at that, I don’t know how we got by without CT-scanners and ultrasounds; the things we do daily in McGehee.  I think the technology change and knowledge that we gain though research since computers became a common place, the research and trials have become so huge and enormous.  They taught us the difference in being a lot more worried about an elevated systolic blood pressure versus an elevated diastolic blood pressure that the first 30 years I was here, we dwelled on, you know.  It’s just a lot of things have changed.  We try to keep up and then the prompter we can’t keep up with, we try to surround ourselves with some good acquaintances that are a good referral base that we can send our patients to if we don’t know the answers.”       \n\nDid the nature of your practice change?\n\n“Well yes; we no longer do obstetrics.  We do very minimal surgery now; just I\u0026Ds, skin cancers, those types of things are about all we do now.  We still do a bit of pediatrics, although are numbers are down since we stopped doing obstetrics.  Of course, as I’ve grown older, a lot of my patients have grown older; so there is a lot of geriatrics involved now.”\n\nSo at the hospital here, if you get an acute MI; do you take care of it here?\n\n“No.”\n\nYou send it to Pine Bluff?\n\n“Yes; well it depends.  They usually go to Pine Bluff or Little Rock one; we give them their choice.  They do get clot busters if they are candidates for it and they are stabilized.  Then they are either send by ambulance or air lifted to Pine Bluff or Little Rock.”\n\nDo you have emergency room coverage?\n\n“Yes, we now have emergency room coverage.  I worked the emergency room for 35 years, no longer than that it was 37 years; every third night and every third weekend and I just stopped here about three years ago.  I don’t regret it.”\n\n\nWere the CTs in the hospital or the office?\n\n“No, it’s at the hospital.”      \n\nWhat is the most gratifying part of practicing medicine in McGehee, Arkansas?\n\n“It’s defiantly just seeing the patients.  My favorite is the chronic illness; seeing them suffer from so many problems and they fight back and are able to live with a lot of problems.  They deal with them, but yet still carry on a pretty much normal life.  You know, we see it; the people that we’re stunned to bump into at the grocery store and they give you a hug.  It’s just a great feeling and we are treated very well in McGehee, Arkansas.  I’ve told doctors who were thinking about coming in to join us, “You will not be treated any better anywhere, if you come to McGehee, Arkansas; this community really appreciates their physicians.”\n\nYou’re 70 now; has the idea of retiring ever crossed your mind?\n\n“Sure.  I tell them, everyone that mentions it to me, I say; “I’ve thought about it; but my wife would work me to death in six months.”  You know, my wife is a worker; she gets up at least 6 days a week ready to work and if I have a day off, she wants me to get ready to work.  You know, as long as I’m able and I’m still enjoying what I do; so far, I’m still enjoying what I do.  So, as long as my physical and mental health stays to the point where I can creep along, I have no immediate plans to retire.”     \n\nI notice you have a little trouble hearing.\n\n“Oh yes.”\n\nDoes that interfere with you practicing?\n\n“You know, probably a little bit; but I don’t think it does very much.  It’s been there since I was in high school.”\n\nSo this is not new?\n\n“I can’t tell that it’s gotten a lot worse since high school actually; it was bad then.  In fact, it almost kept me out of the Army.  If it wasn’t for Vietnam, I would have never gotten accepted into ROTC.”\n\nWe’ve established that you’re strong willed.  We’ve established that you work very hard and have always worked very long hours.  How did your family adapt to being the family of someone who is an absentee a good part of the time?\n\n“Well, I worked hard; but I played hard too.  I always tried to find time to do things with my kids.  We did; we traveled a lot with them and they had a pretty full childhood.  We owned interest in a fishing home in Alaska.  We would take them up there and we spent numerous summers in \n\n\nFlorida.  I tried to make time for all my daughters little events at school and all my sons little things in school.  We just made time for those things; even as busy as it was.”\n\nOne thing we skipped over here and I do want to go back and pick it up; I know you took a hiatus at one point to go to Alaska for a while.\n\n“That’s right.”\n\nTalk a little bit about that and what prompted you to do that, what the process was, and what you thought about it.   \n\n“Well, we loved Alaska; we had traveled there extensively.  We had interest in a fishing camp out of the North West Coast of Alaska and we had taken the kids up there several times.  It was great and we realized that that was an area that was suitable for raising children, but we thought that there were some parts of Alaska that you could really have a decent family life.  So, we started exploring those places with the idea that we might move up there.  Our son just jumped for joy, but our daughter was not quite so thrilled.  She was 13 at the time.  Then it appeared almost though a divine sequence of events that we contacts a gentleman in Kenai, Alaska that was the Vice President of the American Academy of Family Physicians and he was seeking help.  We flew up there one January weekend and thought we’d see how it was in January.  Anyway, we toured the practice and looked at everything and it seemed like a great opportunity.  He was alone and had lost an associate; it just looked like it was going to be a lot of fun.  Basically, I was just trying to shut down my OB, so I really went to Alaska to work a little less and get paid a little more.”\n\nWhich year was this?\n\n“1989; we got back in 1990.  We weren’t there but a year.  The job did not turn out at all the way it was supposed to.  When we got there, the gentleman I was in with said, “Just to get you started, we’re going to open the clinic at 8:00am and close at","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440#t=750.0,4200.0"},{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440/transcript/84874/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"pm, 7 days a week.”  He said, “But don’t worry, we’ll switch up.  We’ll kind of do a little shift work.” After three days, he left for three weeks and when he came back, he worked six weeks and then left for three weeks.  He came back and worked for six weeks and the left for three more weeks.  About the third time, I told Johnnie, “You know, this is not the way it was supposed to have been.”  It didn’t get any better and it was just not fun.  I worked terrible hours and it was just a bad time in our life too because Johnnie’s mom, after we were there the third week or so, was diagnosed with a brain tumor; probably a metastatic squamous cell, and Johnnie spent four months out of the first 12 months we were in Alaska down there in Alaska.  I had the two kids in two different schools that started an hour apart and let out an hour apart; it was just a nightmare.”         \n\nHow long did it take you to cut the line and come back?\n\n\n\n“Well, over a year.  I thought about it sooner, but I just kept trying to; a did make a good friend as a doctor, and was trying to bride this gentleman out and see if he just wouldn’t let us have his practice and him retire, but…”\n\nDid you sell your practice here or sell your house?\n\n“We had sold the house in town.”\n\nAre you active in church here?\n\n“Yes; First Baptist.”\n\nHow did you get all these trophies?  This is a room full of hunting trophies; tell me about this life as this looks like a whole other endeavor besides medicine.\n\n “It just started about 1976 with a friend that I was in the Army with who had moved to Alaska and he asked several of us to come up and go hunting.  We went up and hunted and I never fired a shot.  It was a do it yourself.  We caught tons of fish, but we shot nothing.  I said, “You know, I can whip this; I can do better than this.”  So starting in 1979, I started making annual trips somewhere.” \n\nI see African wildlife, Alaskan wildlife, Arkansas, and where else?\n\n“Mongolia, British Columbia.”\n\nThe Arctic, Muskoxen.\n\n“Yeah, the Arctic; Johnnie was there with me.”\n\nHow many do you think are here?\n\n“You know, I have no idea.”\n\nDo you have another trip planned? \n\n“Yes, I got a big hunt coming up next month hunting prairie chickens, sharp tail grouse, and pheasant in South Dakota.”\n\nGood for you.  Now Johnnie, you fish correct?\n\n“Yes, I am a big fisherwoman.  Oh, I am the luckiest person; if there are a group of people fishing, I am going to catch the most and I am going to catch the biggest.  It’s not so much the skill; I’m just one of those people.”\n\nWhat’s the biggest fish that you’ve caught?\n\n\n“Actually I caught the Alaskan State Record great northern pike; it was huge.  It was one of the most beautiful days and we flew the float plane out and landed on the Iditarod River and the pilot who was a good friend of ours and his wife were with us and they all got out and was pulling the plane and anchoring it.  I was just sitting on the little steps that come down to the pontoon and I just casted and flipped out under the right wing just killing time; I didn’t even throw 15 feet.  The water exploded and it looked like an alligator; I’d never seen a great northern pike, I was just a total _____.  This giant thing just went down and out and stripped off about 200 years of line and the pilot knew immediately, as he was from that area, and said, ”Oh,  you have something good.”  He was snapping pictures for the brochure and it took me like 45 minutes to get this thing up.  James had on gloves and he put his hands in the gill plates as they have bad teeth and he got all wounded with blood running everywhere.  But, it as the most beautiful day.  We got it back to the lodge and they were taking pictures and I said, “Lynn, how big is this? I don’t know what to compare it to.”  Lynn was our pilot.  He said, “Well, you know, when your husband went bear hunting and got a 10 ft bear?’  I said, “Oh yes; I can appreciate that a 10 ft bear is a good bear.”  He said, “This is an 11 ft bear.”  For five months, I held the state record and then some other gentleman caught one that was just a tiny bit bigger.  My great northern pike was my big fishing thing.”         \n\n Speaking of alligators, are there alligators in the lake out there?\n\n“”I hope not; but we have had.”\n\n“We have had in the past.”\n\n“We have had a couple.  One came up in the yard and Johnnie and the game and fish were able to wrestle him down and hauled him off to someplace a long way away from here we hope. But, we have had two or three alligators come up in the pond, yes; they come out of the bayou.”\n\nDid you say you dug this pond?\n\n“Yes in 1993.”\n\nLet’s go back to medicine just a little bit.  You’ve been in public health for many years; is there anything about this part of the state that is different or unique from what you would see in central Arkansas?\n\n“I’m afraid so; I tell everyone that this is “bubba country.”  Of course the state of Arkansas when I last saw had climbed out of the cellar; we were number 47 as far as percentage of people who were overweight.   I can tell you from being up around north west Arkansas, the Mississippi river Delta has 99% of that overweight people; we just have a great problem with nutritional problems.  Of course, the whole State of Arkansas ranks dead last on exercise habits and the Delta certainly contributes heavily with that.  You know, it’s hard; it’s been an area that traditionally was not a very healthy area.  It’s an area that traditionally followed the poor dietary habit and poor exercise habits of their parents and grandparents.  Here in 2016, we’re still trying to get that point across and it’s very difficult.  My two biggest challenges are nutrition and exercise.  My people I think are compliant with their medications.  I do have a few that I catch not being compliant; but for the most part, my normal faithful patients will look me in the eye and explain to me that they are taking their medicine.  Most of them will admit that they are not following the nutritional aspects of the health care and they certainly are not exercising.”\n\nSo, lots of diabetes then?\n\n“Lots of diabetes; about 8-10 a day.  I have that many a day everyday; I’ll either have new ones or just follow-up.”             \n\n Have you enjoyed what you decided to do with your life and would you do it again?\n\n“If I were to be able to go back to showing up at Ouachita in the summer of ’64 and sign on the line until we finished up the job at Peter Smith, I wouldn’t change a thing.  If I had the McGehee practice to do again, I wouldn’t change a thing.  I would probably end up doing the Alaska bypass again just because I was intrigued by it and Johnnie was intrigued by it; it was something that we really wanted to do.  It didn’t work out, but we made some lifelong friends up there and had some wonderful experiences.  You know, I’d probably do that again; but maybe except for that.  You know, there are some things I would change if I had a retrospectrascope that I could’ve gone back through; yes, I would change a few things.  But like Elvis said, “Regrets, I have a few; but again, too few to mention.”  I would do pretty much everything the same way; from Ouachita to UAMS to John Peter Smith, I wouldn’t change a thing.”        \n\nI want you to just pretend we’re not here; you’re talking to your great, great, step grandchildren.  What would you say to them about your life and your hopes for them? \n\n“My life was just what I’ve described to you and my statement that If I had it to do over again, I’d basically; nothing that really mattered much would’ve changed.  I would do it all again should I be able to start tomorrow.  I would encourage them if they enjoyed medicine the way I enjoyed medicine to go for it.  It will be different the practice of medicine in the United States 20 years from now; it will certainly be different than it is now, just like it was 20 years ago.  There is always going to be a need; I just can’t see as the human body was not designed to last forever and it’s not going to last forever.  There are going to be different things that we are able to do \n\n\nto prolong life in a few instances, but for the most part, there is always going to be a need for doctors.  If they feel led into that field, first off go by the biology department over at Ouachita University and inquire there about how they can get started.  To look at the tiger on the ground at Ouachita Baptist University and look up my dad’s name and to go to the bank, borrow the money, and go for it.”         \n\nDo you have anything else you would like to say on this interview?\n\n“Well, we’ve covered a lot of territory.  You know, Johnnie has stuck with me through thick and thin here.  It hasn’t always just been easy and we’ve had some times that were less lucrative as far as finances go and certainly as far as time spent, but I think she would stick with me if we decided to start all over and do it again.”\n\n“Uh Huh, I think that our society has changed so greatly, at least from what I see from the students now days; the whole concept of being a country doctor or being a doctor in a small place; it’s not looked upon in the same way that it once was.  It has fallen from favor, I guess you’d say.  The way people look at things; there is more of an introspective about that person rather than giving to the community and to the society; that was a concept that we both knew that that was what we wanted to do.  We knew that Deshay County was one of the 10 most medically deprived counties in this nation when we came here in 1975; and I will never forget that number.  Obviously, it sounds pretty straight laced, but you know, I knew that we were coming here to do good work.  It was the most gratifying thing for me personally to have been a professional nurse here for 45 years and to work with him and other nurses and doctors.  I can also say that even though I am his wife, I think I can say this with some less than biased opinion; this man has been part of the infrastructure of Desha County.  He is rather like a public utility and I have known that forever and knew that going into it.  I never really begrudged to sharing him with the rest of the world.  In fact, there was a period of time when 13 Christmases in a row, he worked on Christmas Day; but that has never bothered me.  I’m just one of those ladies who are very independent, our children were very independent; but we shared him and we still do because this community needs him and he has made a huge difference in people’s lives.  He has saved lives; I could just tell you stories of so many instances where if he had not been physically present, people would have died.  Then beyond \n\n\nthat, the quality of life that he has been able to help his patients with is a daily thing and that’s no small matter.”         \n\nThank you both.  Thank you very much; that was wonderful.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161605/file/293440#t=4200.0,6257.83492"}]}]}]}