{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/sb3ws8kf4x/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Simmie Armstrong"]},"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":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["family physician","Black family physicians","family medicine"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Simmie Armstrong (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/000/260/246/small/SimmieArnstrongM.D.DVD.mp4_1736958495.jpg?1736958499","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3162/collection_resources/140817/file/260246","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Simmie_Arnstrong_M.D._DVD.mp4"]},"duration":5490.86038,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/260/246/small/SimmieArnstrongM.D.DVD.mp4_1736958495.jpg?1736958499","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3162/collection_resources/140817/file/260246/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3162/collection_resources/140817/file/260246/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/260/246/original/Simmie_Arnstrong_M.D._DVD.mp4?1736958469","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":5490.86038,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3162/collection_resources/140817/file/260246","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3162/collection_resources/140817/file/260246/transcript/74390","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Simmie Armstrong transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3162/collection_resources/140817/file/260246/transcript/74390/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interview with Dr. Simmie Armstrong        \n\nGood evening; my name is Sam Taggart and we are with the Arkansas Physicians Oral History Project.  We are here at Dr. Simmie Armstrong’s office in downtown Pine Bluff next door to Jefferson Hospital.   Thank you for inviting us into your office and into your life.  Dr. Armstrong, this interview is your interview and we want to get your story down right; so if I’m not going in a direction that you want to go in, you just tell me and we will change directions or you just start talking.  There is no such thing as babbling; you can babble all you want to and go off in any direction.  It seems like the most important place for us to start is the very beginning.  \n\nTell us about when and where you were born and what were the circumstances of your birth.  \n\n“Interesting, I was born in a little town called Parkdale, Arkansas on August 22, 1955.  I was delivered by an old country doctor who I cannot recall his name.  It is interesting that he delivered siblings before me and siblings after me, but basically mom tells me as a teenager or the pre-teen years after he had delivered me; I was the middle child as I had two older brothers ahead of me and actually a sister ahead of me as well, but the doctor told mom that there was something different about this child.  You name this one “junior” because there is something different, something unique about him.  I’ve never seen a kid like this before ______ birth, so this kid is going to be different than all the others.  And indeed, I guess I have been different than all the others.  But, that was the nature of my birth.”     \n\nIs Simmie a family name?\n\n“Simmie is a family name.  I have an uncle with that name and I’m named Simmie Armstrong, Jr.; so, my father’s name is Simmie.  Very, very few people that I have come a crossed over the years have had that similar name, so yes; it is a family name.”\n\nDo you know what the origin of the name is?\n\n“The origin I believe, I want to say French.  But, that’s doing my early research and being the closest connection I could come up with being derived by some French terminology.” \n\nWhat kind of work did your family do; your father or mother?\n\n“Well, we weren’t really share croppers.  We had 40 acres, a family farm, and a little cotton farm in the southeast corner of the state.   That’s what we did, how we survived, how we grew up, and how we paid the bills.”\n\nDid you have an extended family around you; a lot of aunts, uncles, and cousins?\n\n“Actually growing up, I only had an uncle.  My uncles; I had one paternal aunt and about six paternal uncles.  I have one maternal aunt, who was actually a twin to my mother, and had two maternal uncles, and that was it.  But, they all had moved away.  The trend in the country in the \n\n\n50’s and 60’s was as one grows up and become older; they moved north in order to seek employment and further their life stories or adventures rather.  But, my uncles had moved to the St. Louis area.  So, there was no extended family.  I had one sister a year and a half older than myself that was killed at the age of 2 or 3 from a tragic accident with large transport truck on the highway.  There were five children all together, two older and two younger than myself.”\n\nHow did your family end up in Parkdale? Do you know?\n\n“Actually, my grandfather moved from Durham, North Carolina.  He moved from Durham, North Carolina to Bastrop, Louisiana and decided that that was not the last move he was going to make; so, he moved just across the border.  He found some property and bought 40 acres of land just across the Louisiana border.  So actually, our home town is about 8 miles just across the Louisiana border.  Grandfather, William Armstrong, moved again from Durham to Bastrop and then across the border into Arkansas and that is where he passed away.”    \n\nDo you remember much about your childhood growing up on a farm with your brothers and sisters?\n\n“Yes, I do.  It was very hard work basically living on a farm.  I remember having some cows as well, maybe a herd of 10-15 cows.  So, we would raise cows for food, or beef rather, and also for sale at certain times when they would grow rather large or able to have calves rather.  We’d sell them for money basically.  It was hard living on a farm, but it was honest and basic work.  It taught us a lot about basic living and gave us a good work ethic.”\n\nDo you remember thinking either that you were poor, rich, or middle class?  Do you remember thinking any of that?\n\n“Oh yes; oh yes.  I remember that quite well.  Basically, I would say that we were probably economically in the poor class; but we were happy and very fortunate to have the split of family and friends as a community.  We had 40 acres and a farm and a lot of people didn’t even have those similar type attributes at the time, so we were said to be very well off with 40 acres and a farm than other people who had less than that at the time.” \n\nHow big was the community of Parkdale?\n\n“During the time I grew up, it was a population of about 478 or 479 people; it was small.”\n\nWhat was the next town closest to Parkdale?\n\n“The next town was; Parkdale is right equal distance in the middle between Eudora and Hamburg.  It’s in Ashley County.  The town just north of Parkdale is 8 miles away called Portland and the town just south of Parkdale is 4 miles away called Wilmar.  We were actually so small when I graduated from grad school up to junior high; we were actually too small to have a high\n\n\n school and had to go to Wilmar.  So my graduation from high school was in a little town called Wilmar 4 miles close to the border of Louisiana.”  \n\nOther than you, Parkdale is famous for one other thing; what is that one other thing?\n\n“That would be basketball.  It is interesting to note that in the later part of the ‘80’s, 89 or there about, they were a Class B school that defeated all these high schools in Arkansas; Class B defeated all Class As, Class 2-A, Class 3-A, and Class 4-A.  They finally beat the school called Marmaduke I think somewhere and I think they were the only Arkansas high school at the time to be featured in the Sport Illustrated because of their ________ on the basketball court.  It’s interesting to note that the superintendant had an outside basketball goal and the little fellows who were just preschoolers basically could go to the outside basketball goals and try to play.  So the larger kids would go out and teach them how to play basketball and these kids later became the team who became state champs.  They were too; the ball was bigger than they were as a child growing up, but they were still trying to throw the ball towards the basket.  They learned and they were smaller than all the teams that they played.  Smaller in more ways than one, but they still became the champs.  Not only the boys, but the girls became All State, too.”\n\nReally?  Was this the coaches?\n\n“No, it was the kids. Basketball was innate in their system.  We had no other sports as we were too small. No other sports, but basketball.” \n\n Did you participate in sports?\n\n“I was not athletically inclined.  I was academically inclined.  Actually when we played sports, the coach would give me the books and tell me that I was the team addititioner.  I was an academician not the athletic participant. ”\n\nWas your family religious?   \n\n“Very religious; I remember that we grew up in a Baptist Church.  There were not very many different denominations present in the country in those days anyway; you were either Methodist or Baptist basically.  But, that was the predominate religions of the time, or era rather.  Dad was the secretary of the treasure for the church and mom was on the usher board, so I was the junior superintendent of the Sunday school.”\n\nReally?  Kept the books.\n\n“I kept the books.  It is interesting to note, but the whole town, or actually the whole community rather, very split if of myself and I had declared at the grand age of probably 10 or 12 that I was going to become a doctor.”\n\nReally?\n\n\n“So everyone was supportive of me and…….”\n\nWere they surprised?\n\n“No, they were not surprised.  They were very supportive of me with that.  I was a little different than most of the kids at the time anyway with my academic ability and so the town supported the church and everyone supported; I could have got into trouble because everyone was going to come home and tell my parents of that.  So, I was truly village raised as a child.”\n\nDid you have an extended group of friends as a child?\n\n“Uh……only at test time.  Only if it was academic feasible for them to be my friends, so to speak in grad schools rather.”       \n\nWhere there people in your life as a child and on up into high school; men or women, who had a big impact on you as an individual and turned you in one direction or another?  Maybe like the coach saying, “You keep records;” were there other people like that when you were growing up? \n\n“Probably my older brother, 10 years older than myself; he was basically encouraging me to keep on track and after it was discovered or known what my future plans were in life, he was where much of the support came from; family and him.”\n\nI think that is the youngest I’ve heard anybody say that they knew that they were going to be a doctor when they grew up.  What triggered that?\n\n“Well, it is interesting that you would ask that question.  I had a great interest always in science and projects as a kid.  I always wanted a chemistry set as a child, but we were too poor to own one.  We were not fortunate enough to have our parents purchase one, so my focus was that I wanted to be famous, I wanted to have means, and I wanted to be a scientist.  For some reason or another, my thought landed on, “If I became a physician, I would be able to accomplish all of that” and it never changed.  So, at the grand age of perhaps 11 or 12, as I was in the 6th grade at the time, that was the choice I made to go into medicine; so, that never changed throughout.” \n\nHow did the school of Parkdale prepare you for what you were meant to do later?\n\n“Well, the system all though grade school and junior high was a segregated system, but that was not a problem basically because I had several teachers in junior high school; but one teacher was very instrumental and inspiring to me, who is now deceased, named Ms. Wilder.  She inspired and created a desire within me that you could do whatever you wanted to do and to keep your focus and not waiver in what you wanted to do and what you could become.  I did have a problem however in a number of those years because I had a speech impediment; I \n\n\nstuttered so badly that I just didn’t read at all.  I wouldn’t speak in public what so ever because my stutter was so embarrassing and it was so difficult for me to do, so I just didn’t speak at all.  We would have oral book reports to do in class and I was so bad at my book reports that the teacher would just say, “Oh, just have a seat and write it out for me.”  The other kids would eventually; kids can be so cruel in those days and they would laugh at me, but then basically they stopped.  The laughter stopped and kind of developed more of a pity than laughter at the time.  They knew that academically there was no comparison and I was in a different league.  So actually in high school and junior high, I did not have the options of attending some type of speech therapy or something of that nature; so, I had the bright idea that I was going to teach myself.  I actually found some books and I read and taught myself how to overcome some of my speech problems; and I did it.”\n\nHow old were you?\n\n“Um, about 14 or 15 years old.”\n\nDid you have a good library available to you?        \n\n“No, there were no libraries available.”\n\nOh this was in Parkdale or Wilmar?\n\n“By that time, I was in high school in Wilmar.”  \n\nAnd you say schools at that time were still segregated?\n\n“No, actually from going to from the junior high to senior high, that’s when the integration process occurred more so.”     \n\nWhat year was that?\n\n“That was in 19………well, the late ‘60s; probably about ’69.  It was actually a smooth transition.  I know there was friction at the location of the places, but actually in my home town it was pretty smooth.  The superintendent of both schools decided in order to not be dictated to by fellow dictorians, they decided to take the four grade and the eighth grade into just one school and just put them at the different schools and so, I think that satisfied the federal regulations and so we never had a problem.”\n\nWere you in one or two of those grades?\n\n“No, I was not.  I was actually in the ninth grade at an eighth grade level.  In the fourth grade I was already passed that other side.  We had a pretty good relationship anyway; I don’t remember any friction what so ever during those years.  My first year in the tenth grade at Wilmar was my first year of the integrated school system and so, we all got along great.”   \n\n\nWas there a difference between the two schools, between the all black school and the integrated school?  Could you tell a difference?\n\n“Yes, there was a difference; there was a huge difference.  The quality of the text books were different.  We had the older editions and the other school would have the newer editions and so, there was a difference in the discrepancy and the learning material.  But, we didn’t let that stop us and we overcome that.  We had, I think, the wisdom of our teachers and also the inspiration of our teachers; that was actually at all the schools.  Even after the integration process occurred, we still had the instructors and the teachers very much involved in our student success.  I remember my high school superintendent was an older man name Lindsey Riad and when I was in the 11th grade, I wanted to go ahead and graduate from high school.  So, I went into his office one day and I told him what my plans were and I told him I planned on going into medical school and such and such.  I was only 16 at the time and he looked up at me and said, “Well Simmie, I think you are too young. You need another year or two more.”  As a result, I said, “Ok, yes sir; I’ll stay another year.”  I said one more year and I had enough credits enough for my options to be done at 16, but that was in those days; now a days, you can’t do that. But, I just had the academic credentials to move on at 16.”         \n\n Did you ever waiver in your desire to become a physician?\n\n“No, never; never.”\n\nWhat were your favorite subjects verses your less favorite subjects?\n\n“At what level?  Actually probably in high school; let’s put it this way, probably the most challenging area was geometry.  Not the subject, but the instructor.  He was inspiring in a way that was in a negative way; I’d put himself in a fashion.  He taught me to become tougher academically.  We had geometry in his glass with different theories, concepts, and different postulates, etc, etc. and he would let the other students make their assumptions and make their recommendations and work out mathematical geometric problems; but the time that I would get back to the blackboard to work out my problems after them, he put extra emphasis on the solution basically.  I’ll put it that way.  It was never a situation where it was just simple straightforward; so one of the big things was, I guess, problems; we dealt with logic using the different mathematical theorems and mathematical processes, etc.  I remember I recall many times where the student before me, we were in a class of high achievers, and he would give his geometric problem and he would say, “Oh, that’s a great job” then I would get up and give my explanation of that same problem and when I sat down as well, he’d say, “Oh wait a minute; get back up here, I need to hear you tell me that again.”  He would grill me a lot more obsessively; but one thing, it did not break my spirit it made me tougher academically.  It improved my logic ability and my ability to work on problems in my life’s profession.  Actually, he moved to the city years later after he retired and he would tell people after that; he said, “Well you know, I saw \n\n\nsomething in that boy as he was growing, that I wanted to bring it out in him.  I made it tough on him because I wanted to make him tougher.”     \n\nHad your speech impediment improved by this time?\n\n“I didn’t talk very much at all, so it was better but no; I didn’t speak much at that time.” \n\nAt what point did you start thinking about, “Well, the next step after this, I’m going to college somewhere?”\n\n“It never wavered; I was always on track with college.”\n\nBut what informed your decision on where you would go to college? \n\n“Well actually, I lived on the farm at the time.  My parents were still farming and we still had small crops.  Monticello was closer to home and I could go home on weekends to work on the farm; so it was logical that I would go to Monticello because it was closer rather than going away.  Actually as I mentioned earlier, I have four other siblings and we all went to different colleges.”\n\nYou all went to college?\n\n“We were five children; my parents had five children.  They had an 8th grade education themselves; mom and dad both only went to 8th grade, but all their children have a college degree.  My two older brothers, they were a year apart but went through the same year because my mother actually kept one and sent them both at the same time so they both could be in the same class.  They both went to AM\u0026N here in Pine Bluff.  I went to U of A Monticello, it was A\u0026M formally, but A\u0026M now University of Arkansas in Monticello and now University of Arkansas in Pine Bluff.  I have a sister one year behind me in school and so, she had gone to UCA in Conway, formally the State Teachers College.  I have a brother two and a half years younger than myself who went to U of A in Fayetteville.  He has gone back and got a Masters in some area in Atlanta.  We all have a college degree.”   \n\nWho was the driving force behind all of this; your mom, dad, or both of them?\n\n“Both of them; probably intellectually, I gained experience from dad.  He was pretty much a self made individual and pretty much an independent thought process, an independent spirit, and independent in everything.  He did pretty much everything he wanted to do.  He was very consciences, a very God fearing and church going man who was pretty well respected by everybody within the community.”\n\nSo, you went to Monticello through college?\n\n“Yes.”\n\n\nNow from Parkdale and Monticello; that’s a big difference in town.\n\n“Big difference.”\n\nDid that have an impact on you?\n\n“No, it didn’t.  Actually at the time, I first went to Monticello in 1973.  I graduated high school in 1973 at the age of 17 and graduated Monticello at age 21 with a degree in biology and chemistry.  I finally got an opportunity to work in a lab.  I didn’t get a chemistry set as a child; I didn’t get that chemistry set, but I worked for the chemistry department at U of A Monticello and I was in charge of the labs for the organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry labs as a student.  So, my dream came true that I had my lab.”    \n\n So that’s how you worked your way through college?\n\n“I had scholarships and also I assisted myself by working in the chemistry department there.” \n\nWhere there any crises along the way that conceivably changed your life?\n\n“One that I don’t like to talk about that was maybe in junior high school; the situation that occurred could actually have sent me down the wrong path in life and I could have been incarcerated basically.  But, I learned that it was actually something that happened that was not my fault or my doing, but the situation that occurred where I was wrongly accused, at school for the most part there, and I became furious and rather really obsessed about it.  I even contemplated things that were not necessarily healthy for other people; so, mother talked me out of that thought process and I dropped that, but it every easily could have gone different.”      \n\nTalk a little bit about college; your courses in college, organic chemistry and all those things that we all have to take.\n\n“I loved it; I loved it because that was a dream come true.  To me, that was something that I always wanted.  All I ever wanted to do was be in a lab and wear a white jacket.  I had a white jacket in undergrad, but I was in the lab.  I was the student lab instructor for the organic and also inorganic labs.  Dr. Pearson was chairman of the department at the time, so I worked for him.  I also worked for Dr. Victoria Coo who was the organic chemistry teacher.  I say now a days a lot of the people that are now either pharmacists, chiropractor, physicians, or etc....a lot of them were my students, I’ll put I that way.  I was the one who graded their papers and they don’t know, but I was the one who gave their grades to them cause Dr. Coo left me to grade their assignments, laboratory, and etc.  But, I enjoyed that.  I had calculus and all the different major courses and actually when I first went to undergrad, I figured that, “Well, I was told that it would be extremely tough.”  I learned that “this is not so tough.  I can do this.  This is easy to do.”  So, I would load on maybe I think one or two semesters, I had over 24 hours per semester, which I had to get special permission from the advisor to be able to take that may hours.  Near \n\n\nthe end of the years, I would add on extra courses and some of the course I didn’t even need.  But I had an interest in it and I wanted to study art history and things of that nature, economics, business courses, etc; those types of things.  I added these courses on in order to try to challenge myself more because I heard medical school was tough.  So if I had 24 hours and I passed those successfully, I should be able to handle medical school; that was my philosophy and that’s why I took a lot of extra course work.  I left out of undergrad with almost 200 hours and only needed 124 to graduate.”        \n\nIn the 1950s and 1960s, less than 2% of the physicians in America were African American.\n\n“That’s true.”\n\nSo, did you look at this as a challenge or were you even aware of this?\n\n“No; to be quite honest with you, I saw people as people.  One thing my dad taught us growing up as a child was “People are people.”  There were times and I’m not going to say and I’m not going to be in aid to the fact that there was not racism present in those years, yes it was.  Were you a subject to that, were you oblivious to that, or were you involved in those situations, yes; but I did not fall or allow that to interfere with my plans.  One thing I can say within the community and I mentioned earlier that within the community, my dad was well respected; he was well respected by all groups of people.  No one disrespected my father because of who he was and the way he carried himself.  That was always the way his kids were treated as well too.  We were not the subject of some diabolical schemes or some plot of ploys.  He taught us to respect people and we’d be alright; that’s the way I’ve been all my life as it was all I knew to do.”       \n\nIn college, did you have any people, you already mentioned one gentleman who had a big impact on you or pushed you in one direction or another or suggested you do this or that to accomplish what you wanted to?\n\n“I think I was self motivated.  I cannot identify one individual other than my instructors basically and they were all pretty much in the same category for the most part. I cannot identify one person to say that this person in college was the turning point of making this turn out this way.  I can say that perhaps one gentleman who was head of the biology department at UA Monticello; Mr. Stillman, he was very supportive of me and he felt that I had all the skills, ability, and talent to be able to do whatever I wanted to do.  He was very supportive and when I first met him, I thought he was going to be very non-supportive.  I was pleasantly and sadly wrong, but he was a great inspiration with great support.”       \n\nObviously you ended up in rural health; in general medicine and family practice.  When you say, “I’m going to go to medical school and be a doctor” I don’t think most of us really know exactly what we are going to be.  Did you know exactly what you wanted to do?\n\n“My plan at the time was to return to home.  Return home and to be a; I chose family medicine basically because I looked at the different options and said “if I go into pediatrics, I have to be with the children and I won’t be able to deal with the adults back home.  If I go into surgery, I won’t be able to treat them medically; I will just be surgery.  If I do adult medicine, I will only deal with adults and not the children.  So, if I go into family medicine, I can deal with all that.”  That was my warped sense of understanding and plans at that time and so, I chose that I was going to become a physician in 6th grade and before I went into medical school, I chose primary care or family medicine because that was what I was going to do when I went back home so to speak.”\n\nSo, you decided you were going to go to medical school, but was there ever a question on where you would go to medical school?     \n\n“Um, I was not aware of all the different options.  I knew that state supported schools were better for me as I did not have the means or funds to go outside state, which would require a state tuition.  I applied actually to about four medical schools and interviewed at three.  I interviewed at Washington University in St. Louis, at UAMS, and also interviewed at Meharry.  In December 1976, I actually had an acceptance letter from Meharry out of state in Nashville, Tennessee and in January 1977, I got my second acceptance letter for medical school at UAMS.  So because it was in state, I had the option since I was in the first group of class that year accepted; I think they had three different waves of students accepted and I was in the first wave of students accepted. I got the letter of acceptance to UAMS and I declined the one at Meharry and went to UAMS in state and was offered a scholarship.”      \n\nYou sound like you were a busy young man in college in your work.  Did you have a social life?\n\n“No, I did not need one.  It was not necessary if I had socializations.  It was not even necessary.  I spent my time in the; actually I worked in the library to clean the books off and doing those type things, but other than just in the chemistry lab too.  I spent my time in the library reading, studying, and trying to improve myself.  I rarely went to football games.  When a lot of the football games were going on, Saturdays were when most of them played, I’d be in the dorm studying getting ready for the next test or that type of thing. So no, no real socialization.”\n\n Did you ever consider medical missions?\n\n“Yes, I have within the last decade.”\n\nNot when you were younger?\n\n“No not when I was younger, no. Actually the focus was to go back home and do work on people back home.”\n\nWe always have to talk about the first year of medical school.  What was it like for you?\n\n\n\n“It was extremely tough for the most part.  I remember before going to medical school, the summer before, I took a course on speed reading at UALR; that was helpful.  I had a little summer session of speed reading at UALR and actually the first year, in 1977, I was a class officer.  I was elected vice president of my freshman class and later on discovered that I was the first African- American student at UAMS to be elected class officer in 1977.  At that level of garment there, I became a member of the Sentinel Celebration Committee. We deemed Thomas A. Bruce at the time and that was the schools undergoing 20 years in 1978, I believe.  They had moved from several locations and I think McArthur and other places there too before their present location of where it is now.  I learned a lot of history about the school, but I made history as well about being a class officer as well.”     \n\nTalk about your interaction with Dr. Bruce.\n\n“Very positive; it was very, very, positive.  He also; we created a project in the College Station area that is now part of a clinic there now too.  His students, Dean Bruce actually staffed us and taught us about history and physical taking through this little clinic.  We were senior students; well, I was like a sophomore student at the time, but there were other students and seniors there at the time too, but this little project he actually staffed it with us.  He actually spent his time and had us students go out there and take blood pressures on the patients and citizens in that region and they were very happy to see us.  We were an inspiration to them to see young black students going into this community in College Station and being concerned about the community and taking their vital signs, so to speak.  We didn’t know much of what we were doing, but we were doing something that was inspiring to those people and we were inspired and motivated by it as it was something that we were giving back, something that we didn’t have.  We didn’t actually give, but it gave us a real sense of being, so to speak.  Dean Bruce was one of the doctors; he was a cardiologist in training, but he was actually one of the people who came out and worked with us. I had a lot of respect for Dean Bruce.”                \n\nSo coming from Monticello, were you adequately prepared for medical school?\n\n“Yes, I would say so.  People would think, or some would think, rather that coming from a smaller school, we may not be as in doubt as Fayetteville or Hendrix, but I really had no problems with the preparation.  As I said, I kind of created a program of my own to create the situation where I loaded more course work on myself, so if I could handle that, I could handle medical school.  So, I didn’t just; that was my though process, if I could do this, I can certainly do medical school.”     \n\nWhere there any other people in medical school who had a big impact on you in terms of guiding you in one direction or nudging you in one direction?\n\n“There was an old doctor that I remember, Dr. Montague Cobbs; he had been I think an anatomy professor or teacher in medical school.  They had substitutes who tried to motivate us \n\n\nthat would sit down and have round group discussions with us; that was motivational.  He was about 80 something years old at the time, but he was still very extremely sharp in his process.  He was, I guess him and others, those were the motivators who gave us the desire to achieve.”\n\nAnd you had a really intense desire to achieve.\n\n“Yes, extremely.  I hadn’t stopped actually.  I mentioned there that I had loaded more course work on to do a lot of different things to try to diversify as much as possible and to get abroad as much as possible and that unfortunately has not changed yet.  So, it did not change in med school and did not change after graduating from medical school and becoming part of this community.  I had been involved in an extreme number of things on a continued basis.”        \n\nAt some point during this period of time, you already said that your goal was to go back home or something much like home.\n\n“Yes.  Why did I end up staying in Pine Bluff?\n\nNo; no, I was just kind of curious as to what was the process that obviously pushed you into rural health and family practice, I would guess.  Talk about that a little bit on how you made your decisions?  You talked a little bit about possible OB or possible orthopedics.  \n\n “Again it was because of the number of people and the number of services that you could provide by being in primary care.  At the time, primary care was not the most favorable specialty going; but for me, that was what was best for me.  People leaned to becoming a surgeon, anesthetists, gastro neurologist, cardiologist, or other sub-specialists areas; but I had no desire to look at those areas.  My focus was to be primary care or the family physician.”     \n\nAt what point did you decide that you were going to come this way and go into AA Family Practice program?\n\n“After……I was very much involved in medical school with the American Academy Family Physicians and also the Arkansas Academy family Physicians as well.  I was knowledgeable of what was going on at the academic, bureaucratic, and all the above levels and so, that was a concern.  As a result of that, at the time in the ‘70s and early ‘80s for the most part, primary care was the step child of the training programs; especially in academics.  It seemed at the University or UAMS rather, it was not the most favorable area to go into.  In order for me to fulfill my wishes and desires, I felt that if I went outside to a community based hospital to a training program of that nature, you would get the best training and that was actually what I chose to do.”        \n\nWhat did your choices come down to?\n\n“My choices came down to Fayetteville, Fort Smith, or Pine Bluff.”\n\n\nSo you had contact with Lee Parker?\n\n“Lee Parker, yes; Busby in Fort Smith, Ken Lilly in Fort Smith, Bruce Strats; others.”\n\nSo you knew Bruce?  He was one of my schoolmates. \n\n“Ok.” \n\nSo how long did it take for you to get used to somebody saying, “Dr. Armstrong?\n\n“Not long; not long at all there.  For someone……I graduated at age 25 and so, I was rather young at the time of graduation; I think probably the youngest of my class and a lot of the older people had a problem with it.  Because of my age and my being so youthful looking, I always got, “Is he the doctor?  He’s too young to be …” So, I grew up youthful in appearance and it didn’t bother me to show them my credentials and move on and they were ok with that.”\n\nSo you graduated medical school when?\n\n“1981.”\n\nAnd when did you start your residency?\n\n“1981; I started my residency here in Pine Bluff in 1981 and finished in 1984.  I was board certified shortly after and I’ve been here since that time.”  \n\nTalk a little bit about the staff members and the head of the department when you were in your residency program here.\n\n“One of the; I guess the ones that were instrumental to me staying in town who are retired now are Dr. Bobby Jenkins, a cardiologist, basically was very much my mentor, I’ll put it that way.  James A. Lindsey, a surgeon in the early program and a director as well; he was very much instrumental and very much a mentor.  There was a pediatrician, Dr. Townsend, who is now deceased but again was a mentor.  These people really attribute a lot of their training, teaching, or mentoring.  There were many, many others; Dr. Erwin who is now deceased was a general surgeon, Dr. Sterling Rhoades an obstetrician who is now deceased as well, Dr. Carlie Highman, another deceased obstetrician as well.  These guys very much; I can’t forget Dr. Robert Schmidt, a general surgeon whom was actually the first African-American physician that I ever laid eyes on that was alive.  By the time I laid eyes on him, I was already at home going to Medical School.  They told me I had to have a; a letter from my school told me I had to have a physical exam for my school and so, he was the first one I ever saw in real life; that was in 1977.”\n\nAnd he was here?\n\n“He was here in Pine Bluff.  He was my mentor as well in my early days of training.”       \n\n \n\nAs in so many things in life, things change and you go on in different directions.  You did your residency and I think you told me that you have been here in practice ever since.\n\n“Yes.”\n\nWhat changed your mind about going down to Parkdale?\n\n“Actually Dr. Jenkins who was one of the early instrumentals and Dr. Robinette, who is now deceased and was a primary care physician; I went in with him here in Pine Bluff and those two people were very instrumental in making the decision to stay in the Pine Bluff region.  There was a patient who I had picked up in residency as a third year resident who was injured in an industrial accident at the International Paper Company.  Her mom was a nurse and so, she was very much part of my reason for staying in this region as well.  She did not want to leave her daughters bedside, so to speak, and I cared for her daughter until her daughter passed away many years later.”     \n\nTalk a little bit about the process of finishing the residency and going out into practice.  Were you prepared for what you were meant to be do?  Is this the office you built when you went into practice?\n\n“No, I have been in this present location for 17-18 years now.  I spent the first 15+ years at a different location.  It was right down the street, but the building got smaller and so I outgrew the building.  I had to get a larger facility.  The previous owner of this building, who built this building, was Dr. Banks Blackwell, an orthopedic surgeon.   His wish was that someone in medicine would get the building and take it over upon his death.  So, there were several people willing to purchase this building and when he learned that I was interested in buying it, he told his son to make sure that I got the building.  So, I got the building in 1999. ”\n\nWere you prepared to set up a practice; the billing, the records, purchases, hiring/firing people?\n\n“Early on, yes.  I had; during the residency years, I had attended a seminar in Oklahoma on how to set up a practice basically.  I spent a week there learning different things on how to set up this and how to set up that, so I came back with all the information in charts and books on “how to” and I kept all this information together and it was really helpful in setting up my practice.  I spent some time with a dermatologic surgeon in Hot Springs who he was a Mohs Chemo surgeon and we spent a lot of time talking about dermatologic surgeries and how to set up an office.  So, I learned a lot from him as well.  In fact, the information that I brought back from Oklahoma, I loaned it to several other residents going into practice and they used the same information and same format that I learned in the seminars in Oklahoma on how to set up their practice and they did pretty well with it.  It had a lot of “How to do this” and “How to do that” type self learning things in that nature.   I actually spent some time in some of the doctor’s \n\n\noffices front desk looking at what people do at the front desk in the front office, rather than just the back office and that taught us things on “how to.”\n\nDo you know Tommy Love?\n\n“Yes, I do.”\n\nHe helped me set my office up.\n\n“Is that right?”\n\nTommy was very instrumental.\n\n“I remember him when he was a resident at UAMS.”\n\nObviously, we all have gone from the 4X7 cards; that’s where I started in my first office for records, the 4x7 card up to EMRs.  Where were you in that process?  What kind of records did you start with when you first opened your office?\n\n“It was actually a dictation system.  I started out with a dictation system and I didn’t write anything.  Very rarely, I wrote my notes.  I did write some notes, but most my notes were dictated notes; transcribed notes, we’ll put it that way.”\n\nHave you made the transition to EMRs?\n\n“Begrudgingly, yes.”\n\nDo you have a good system that works?\n\n“I have a system; I’ll put it that way.  All them are slower than they should be; I don’t think there is one perfect system for the most part. Also the cost of the ERM systems in general opposed to the productivity down for the providers, I think statistically speaking, you are slowed down to 25-30% efficiency by having the ERM system rather than some other type of system.”\n\nSo when you opened your first office and not in residency anymore, how many people did you have on staff besides yourself?\n\n“Two; a nurse and front office person and actually both of them came from the residency program.  The nurse came from the residency program, I stole her away, and the front office came from the front office residency program.”        \n\nAre you married?\n\n“Yes, I’m married and have two daughters.”\n\nWhen did you marry?\n\n\n“I got married in my second year in residency in 1982.  I have two daughters who are both teachers; one at Pulaski Tech and one at Jacksonville.  The one at Jacksonville teaches high school and the one at Pulaski Tech teaches communications.”\n\nWhat are your wife’s name and the names of your daughters?\n\n“My wife’s name is Linda.  She and I both actually went to Monticello.  She was a graduate and was the same age when she graduated the year before I did in Monticello.”\n\nDid you know her then?\n\n“We met on campus and dated one time, but no more.  Later on, we got together after medical school.”     \n\nYou couldn’t pursue your daughters to go to medical school?\n\n“I could not; they chose not to.  They said it was too much work for them to do.”\n\nHow did your family adapt to being a family of a solo practitioner; a busy person?\n\n“I really thought that; I would say that my first expression is, “I don’t know.”  I do know that that would not be an adequate expression, but I think they accepted it as it was.  They spent time taking care of themselves and I would spend as much time as possible, but I was a lot of time away from home as you know as a primary care person.  I was very busy really on top of that with a very, very large practice.  They accepted what I do and was acceptable, so it never became a problem.  In retrospect, I kind of wished I spent a little but more time with them, and I don’t really regret it, but I just wished I had spent a little more time.”      \n\nDid you have a busy hospital practice as well?\n\n“Extremely.”\n\nDo you still?\n\n“No, I do not.”\n\nWhen did you get out of hospital work?\n\n“Two years ago.”\n\nAre you staffed by hospitalists?\n\n“Yes; basically hospitalists.  We have a few people who are still seeing people in the hospital, but majority of primary care people, probably 85-90%, are not doing hospital work.”    \n\nThis is a loaded question because I already know the answer; obviously you keep your hands in a lot of different fires, you’ve done a lot of things.  Talk about some of your extracurricular activities; church, business, sports, being a ring side doctor, or those types of things.\n\n“Numerous, numerous outside activities there; for 37 years, I’ve been involved in shelter against domestic violence.  30 of those years, I’ve been the chairperson of the board of directors and now I’ve been recently elected this year as the president chair of the board of directors.  We built a new facility, which I think has become a state of the art facility in Arkansas at this time, here in Pine Bluff; who was a grant of the  Donald Reynolds Foundation.  We were able to obtain 3.58 million dollars from the  Donald Reynolds Foundation.  Actually, it was more than that because before the building and the construction cost it was about 3.58 millions dollars and we built a new center.  We have been able to maintain it and do well with it.  It’s on State Street here in Pine Bluff.  We have excellent security and it was a dream-come true, so to speak.  We have had struggles over the years and the last three decades + of wanting to achieve and do things.  Our overall goal is to irradiate domestic violence in American, but we know that that is not possible at this time.  But, our goals are to try to ease the suffering, problems, and pains for the people in Jefferson County and surrounding areas.  So, we have done a lot and as I said before, I’ve been involved a lot in that project for 30 years or more.  I’ve been involved in “Area Agency on Aging have had the longest seniority on the board of directors there; 24 years now as the medical advisor to the board.  I’ve been involved in the community health center, Jefferson Comprehensive Care Systems, Inc as chairman of the board of directors in the mid ‘90s.  I’ve been involved in the Arts and Science Center as the chairman board director for about 7 years and I’m not involved anymore at this time.   I guess a big passion has always been the pugilist sports as we talked earlier about.  I had an interest in undergrad in college with martial arts and that kind of manifested itself in being a ringside physician in area USA boxing.  I’ve been certified as a ringside physician for two national USA boxing national events and also recently in June of this year, the third national title event as a ringside league main physician, I guess in Hot Springs.  So, we will have a national title event.  Title is another boxing association that I have been with USA boxing.”\n\nWill there be more than one physician at ringside?\n\n“There will be several probably; but I will be the main league physician there.  This year will be the third year I will be involved there.  I’ve been involved in mix martial arts for the last 6-7 years or so.”\n\nYou, yourself doing mixed martial arts?\n\n“No, not doing martial arts; being ringside physician.  I didn’t do mixed; we didn’t have mixed martial arts in training, we just had martial arts.  It wasn’t mixed, we didn’t have the other parts of that kick boxing; we had basically karate and I was involved in that.  I’ve been involved with professional boxing as ringside physician and professional mixed martial arts as a ringside physician as well as an amateur.  All theses in the state of Arkansas; all corners of the state.”\n\n\n\nThere is a boxing ring in Paris?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nIs it still there?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nDo you ever go there?\n\n“Yes, I do.  The members, delta people, just two weeks ago; they were from Paris.  They come from Fort Smith.   In the last five weeks, I have been involved in four weekend events.”\n\nIs that right?\n\n“We have boxing weekends on Saturdays.  These are kids from boxing clubs and boy’s clubs.  All the kids are kids who would otherwise have gotten in trouble or be in trouble in their youth.”\n\nIs there a boxing club here?\n\n“Actually, there are three here in town.”\n\nDo they have gyms to work out in?\n\n“Yes, they do.  There is a church group, St. James, and Pine Bluff Boxing Club, and also there is one Z’s Boxing Club.”      \n\n Talk a little bit about how you go into this? I found this interesting; and your own martial arts.\n\n“Oh, let me put it this way; as a kid growing up in sixth grade, my desire was to become a physician.  There were several things in life that I wanted to do or become and some I will say I have accomplished.  One was to be a scientist in a laboratory, two was to become a martial artist, three was to fly a plane, and four was to play a piano.  I do not have a pilot’s license, I do not play a piano at this time; but the other two, I feel like I’ve done.”\n\nHave you taken flying lessons?\n\n“No, but I plan to do that before I leave the Earth.”   \n\nAre there other people who have inspired you?\n\n“One thing that I have always been interested in and you asked earlier about who inspired me, but there is a character on TV that was actually an inspiration for me to achieve and that was the character Spock off Star Track.  I admire the logic, the intelligence, and the strength that he \n\n\npossessed.  That was one of the inspiring forces in my early life when that series became a popular TV show.”\n\nHave you ever told him that?\n\n“He’s deceased now as of about two months ago.”\n\nThat’s too bad; you should have told him that he inspired you.        \n\nWhat invention, convenience, or change has happened in the practice of medicine, or life in general, that has changed life the most for you?\n\n“That is a difficult question as I’m not sure I identify with one thing that has made a big change in medicine.  Probably, more negative, but probably the intervention of the entrepreneur, or the business man, in the field of medicine.  The art of medicine is now gone.  There was a time when we practiced an art and that art is gone.  I don’t think ever to return.  The delivery of medicine has become more of a business approach rather than the compassion that it should have and it has been lost and lost forever.  I don’t think it will ever return.  It has become politicized and become economically sanctified, and just a business rather than what we all cherished and knew in the early days of training and in the beginning as an art or feeling; taking care of fellow man, curing their ills and sicknesses.  Now, we have clients rather than patients, numbers rather than names and we don’t have the same compassion or the same empathy for what we do.  It’s never to return.”           \n\nSo, medicine has changed, have you changed?\n\n“Basically, no; I have resisted the option of changing, but I really questioned that option now days as to whether or not I should have changed like everything else.  I say that because being the last of the dinosaurs as I’ve been called that many times, but being the last dinosaur breed, or renaissance man so to speak, you are one of the lasts of your kind so to speak and that person is obsolete and on its way out, truly a dinosaur.”    \n\nIf you had to do it over again, would you do it like you’ve done?\n\n“I would make a few changes, yes.”\n\nWhat are some of the changes?\n\n“I would perhaps maybe focus on the business aspect of it maybe a little bit more early on, but still maintaining the compassion and the art.”  \n\nAfter you got set up here and developed your practice and got involved in all sorts of things, did you ever stop and think again about going back to Clarkdale?\n\n\n\n“Uh no, I did not. Once I settle, make a decision, and I satisfy myself with that decision, the mature thing to do is when you make a decision and after it’s made, you don’t regret it.”    \n\nWhat’s the most gratifying part of medicine for you; the most gratifying part of what you do on your normal day, whether it’s being a ringside physician or those kinds of things?  \n\n“The ability to be an astound clinician; I pride myself on being a diagnostician, or clinician so to speak.  At the end of the day when you have solved the kind of like Sherlock Holmes so to speak approach, just solved a puzzling situation or came up with the answer that no one else has been able to; you actually feel very good and it’s very rewarding.”   \n\nHave you started thinking about the idea of retiring or modifying your work schedule aiming in that direction?\n\n“I have modified my scheduling tremendously.  I had some personal health issues over the years; one perhaps 17 years ago when I had a ruptured cerebral aneurysm.”\n\nReally?\n\n“And two years ago, I had small bowel cancer and yes that has developed and caused some changes in approach.”\n\nIf you don’t mind talking about it, how did you pick up the small bowel cancer?\n\n“Accidently; I have gastric polyposis and it was discovered by an episode of heavy rectal bleeding and the colonoscopy and EGD finding was basically that; it was gastric polyposis and some of them were in various stages; some of them were bad and some were not so bad.  So, we monitored those and took out some and took out some over a period of time, when one day I decided that I was tired and I needed a break.  So, I asked a couple of colleagues and one surgical colleague, if we could just take all these polyps out at one time as good as a prostatectomy and they told me “No, not usually; we just take them out as they get larger, etc, etc.”  So, I went with the idea that I wanted them taken all out as I was tired of all this at this point in time.  The gastroenterologist looked in and said, “Wow, there is this area downstream in your addendum area that kind of looks suspicious and I want to biopsy this; that’s the reason I came in.”  It came back as carcinoma in my small bowel.”\n\nThat was when?\n\n“2014”            \n\nDid that change your view of life or have any effect?\n\n\n\n“Yes, it did.  It changed my view of life as it made me more humble and more respectful of the fact that you can’t go forever and live forever.  Sometimes we need to slow it down a little bit and maybe take life a little bit easier at a less faster pace.”\n\nYou mentioned the aneurysm; was it an acute bleed?\n\n“It was an acute bleed, about a 2cm hemorrhage in my left occipital lobe.  It was sudden and perhaps maybe on May 21, 20…and……well around 9:00.  I tell people that I am one of 5%ers.  5%ers in that if you have 100 people, 50 die at the time in happens, 50 go to the hospital, 25 of those don’t make it out as they expire in the hospital, 20 come up with some residual deaths, and 5% come out unscaled.  I come out unscaled basically-5%ers.  I did have temporary loss of vision of my left eye because of the occipital location and it was kind of ______ as I never really stopped.  I remember it was 9:00 when I had this severe onset headache that was extremely severe.  I was on call really at the time and I had this headache until the next day and then I noticed as I was writing on this sheet of paper, I could see the paper but I could not see the pen. I couldn’t see my hand and the pen.  I looked around and thought, “Oh, there’s my hand” but when I looked in a different direction, I could not see the pen or the hand writing it but I could see the results on the paper.”\n\nDid you have to have any procedures done?\n\n“We weren’t quite sure what it was when the scans were done; we weren’t sure whether it was a tumor, a cancerous process, or just what.  It stopped bleeding and had no further bleeding occur and finally an MRA/MRI showed that it was vascular in nature and not a hemangioma type thing, so we knew there was nothing else to do but leave it alone.”       \n\nSo you interpret this question any way you want to interpret it; when I use the word adequately compensated, have you been adequately been compensated for what you do?\n\n“No, I have not.  Most of the time, I have lived the majority of my services at no compensation.  So, the answer of have I been compensated for my services; not in the least bit.  We take care of some of the most sickest people and majority of them have no means of paying bills or support; but we turn no one down because of inability to pay even in this city and even in this day in time.  We do not turn anyone down even they have insurance or not.” \n\nDid affordable health care have any impact?\n\n“It has had a positive impact.  It’s helped people who otherwise would not have had any means to take care of themselves and so, it’s had a positive impact for the providers.”\n\nThis may sound like a silly question as it is obvious you enjoy almost everything you do; what do you do for entertainment and enjoyment?\n\n\n\n“Um, that’s a good question; what do I do for entertainment and enjoyment?  That’s a good question; I think the break away from the monotony and it’s still a form of medication because it’s ringside, but going to the USA boxing events and the mixed martial arts events and regionally sports events is actually a means of escape and means of enjoyment so to speak.  I have opportunities to dialogue with the young participants; a lot of them are from wayward homes and wayward situations there.  Some of them are immigrants and I have a lot of opportunities to lend my experiences and as a kid growing up in a similar type backgrounds as well, my experiences and knowledge abilities to them may encourage them and inspire them to do other things if they want.”\n\nIs there anything unique or unusual about your practice here in Pine Bluff, or Southeast Arkansas, from someone who is from Gravatt, or Northeast Arkansas, that you wouldn’t see?\n\n“I have probably the most diverse practice; it is a large practice for the most part.  I have a large number of different problems I see; most of these problems are very severe, major critical problems.  I have a lot of complex sick people and so, they are not going to have the same problems in other low cals in the state.”     \n\nHave you enjoyed your life so far to this point?\n\n“Yes, I have.”\n\nWould you do what you have chosen to do again?\n\n“I would do what I chose to do again; perhaps maybe a different, I want to say different approach or different focus, but maybe look at it and tweak it in some small ways.  But, I would do it again.”\n\nDoes your family, or wife, go with you to the ringside events?\n\n“No, no; she doesn’t go to the events.”\n\nFor the record, what was your wife’s maiden name?\n\n“Her maiden name was Burks; Linda Marie Burks-Armstrong.”\n\nWhere is she from?\n\n“She is from Dumont, Arkansas.  Again, our background is very similar as she is from a small farming family. She was an extreme intellectual and as I said earlier, we were the same age and she graduated a year before me in college.  She graduated at 20 at UA Monticello.”\n\nAre you still active in your church?\n\n“Yes.”    \n\n\nWhich church do you belong to?\n\n“Church of Life; my church here in Pine Bluff is Breath of Life.  It’s the name of the church rather; it’s a full gospel group.” \n\nOne of these days, you are going to be a picture on the wall.  We are all going to be a picture on the wall.  Our great, great, grandchildren are going to look up and say, “Oh, that’s my great, great grandpa.  He was a doctor of some sort, but I’m not quite sure.”  Forget that we are here and I would like for you to talk to your great, great grandchildren.  What would you like for them to know about you and what you would wish for them in their lives?\n\n“To my great, great grandchildren and my grandchildren; your great, great grandfather was a physician, a practitioner of the arts of medicine, a community minded and civic individual.  Involved in a lot of community projects and did a lot of things within the community.  Gave himself tremendously in more ways than one; financially, economically, emotionally, socially and all the above to people he cared for.   I would charge or dare you to do the same things in life.  Be all that you can be.  Do the things that you are sincere about.  Learn and never put limitations on yourself; it has always been a motto or mine, “Do not put limitations on yourself.”  Feel and do all that you can; there is nothing that you cannot do.  There is an award that I received when I was in high school called “The I Dare You Award” and the nature of the reward was created by William Danforth, who created the Rolston Purina Dog Chow Company and states that “3% of the world’s population will become self-realized.”   What I mean by that is that when you think you have done everything that you can do and all the things that are possible and there is nothing else you can do, there is more you can still accomplish and more you can still do.  Self realization is when you realize in yourself that you can still do things that you feel you cannot do.  Again, 3% of the world’s population becomes self realized.  Be one of the 3%, not the masses.  Get away from the median, be more than just mediations above the media.  Do all things, be all things, become all things that you can because your mind can be a limited factor; your mind can be your most motivating innovative factor.  Be all that you can be.  The Army has this motto or slogan, “Be all that you can be” and I agree with that 100%.         \n\nThank you sir; that was excellent and concludes our interview.       \n\nWhat are some other medical accomplishments that you have been engaged in that you have done during your life at this point?\n\n“Well, one thing in particular that I will mention and talk about; when I was in undergrad at UA Monticello, there was a dentist that came to the campus and spoke to a group of students there that had an interest about a disease called Sickle Cell Disease.  At that level, I was a sophomore or junior student and I listened to Dr. Brown talk about the subject and I became very interested in that subject.  Later on, two years later, I became a student at medical school and learned a \n\n\nlittle bit more about it and when I graduated, I had some exposure to Sickle Cell patients during medical school days and also exposed to Sickle Cell patients during my residency days as well.  My interest in that peeked a little bit greater during that time and so, I got involved and volunteered in public schools.  It was called the VIPS program, Volunteers In Public Schools, and one of the subject areas of it that I frequently talked about was Sickle Cell Disease.  I created some over head projections with old slides and things that we had at the time; I actually still have them and this was from the ‘80s, ‘84-’85.  So, we would speak to class students in the 5th and 6th grade every year; we were asked to do that and so that interest never changed.  I had a great interest in the disease process and how it came about.  In 1995, there was a committee developed at the hospital, Jefferson Medical Center, and I was not a member of the committee, but it was lead by a hematologist/oncologist and the idea was that this was a group, or committee, who was going to look into the problems that a patient would have with Sickle Cell Disease.  He, before the meeting was to convene, asked the administration to give me a call and asked me if I would share that committee as he felt I had more experience than he did with that disease process than he did and he was the hematologist.  I actually had treated a lot of patients and also had a big interest in the prep with that subject and he and I actually talked about that on occasions.  So, I was asked to come to the meeting and share it and become his chairperson.  It was consistent of another hematologist, a pediatrician, another primary care person, respiratory therapist, administrative people, nurses, and a few others; laboratory personnel as well.  So, we kept looking at the problems and we looked at a lot of problems as to mainly our concern was “what can we do to reduce the length of stay for these patients when they come to the hospital?” or “what can we do to reduce the spendatures?” etc, etc.  “What can we do to better treat them?”  So, we met maybe 6-8 different times looking at different aspects of it and so, somehow it all boiled down to as chairperson, and I had a secretary there as part of the administration also, I had a nurse tell us whether the patient would be placed in the hospital or admitted on the pediatric ward, so it was a pediatric nurse and a few of us would meet after the meetings to decide and get all the information to collect all the data.  So we decided somehow we figured out it was best to create some type of critical care pathway or create a pathway rather on protocol on how we can manage these patients.  So, we looked around the nation and looked around for different pathways and protocols and we just couldn’t find any.  We did literary search, library search, etc; at the time, we did not have internet capability and basically just had the medical library here in Pine Bluff to do our literary search.  We could not find a critical pathway to deal with anything of that nature.  So, we had pathways and protocols to try to develop and there was none for this subject area.  We decided to create our own ourselves and we did.  We had no patterns and we decided to do it in phases.  We had acute phase, stabilization phase, and the discharge phase; we had three phases basically creating a critical pathway.  We started in the beginning in an emergency room setting. We developed reading orders protocol so the speak for the medical staff for them to accept it and they did accept it, begrudgingly some and others whole heartedly accepted it.  Somehow, the \n\n\nnewspaper wanted to do a story on it and I’m not sure exactly how they got wind of that, but they did a story on it.  It was the Pine Bluff News and the headline said. “JMC, the first in the state to have a critical pathway for Sickle Cell Disease.”  Well that year, the National Sickle Cell Disease Foundation out of Cole City, California was having its annual meeting at the Excelsior in Little Rock at the time.  A member of the College of Health Related Professions at UAMS was sent to help set everything up and help be a sponsor.  So, the sponsor did not have a projector program to present a paper.  They came down; Dr. Deere came down and asked me if I would present this pathway as a paper for Arbiters in Arkansas.  So, I and Dottie Yarbrough, the head nurse of the pediatric ward, headed to Little Rock to present this pathway at the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation Conference.  They videotaped it and weeks later, we got called aldenation and they wanted us to come and present this same program to different parts around the country.  So, not only was it JMC’s first program, but it really became the first program of this nation.”\n\nThat’s wonderful.\n\nDid you get publication of it too?\n\n“We did and we did a study and found that in the first six months of protocol, we were able to be comprehensive.  We were able to give comprehensive care to the patient and the length of stay went from 9 days down to 7.3 days and the cost of care at the time in the ‘90s went from $9,000 down close to $7,000.  It costs substantial savings and the care was even tremendously improved as we were comprehensive.  We were focused on the subject.  We were not hap hazard and so, we had greater care and emphasis and respect for the patient and the disease improved tremendously.  So, this was very effective in many different ways and all that data was presented at the National Sickle Cell Disease Convention.  We went all over the countryside and collaborated with New York hospitals, hospitals in Florida, Indiana, and even in Great Britain.  I actually had some attorneys call me wanting me to testify on behalf of some of the patients who they were representing and I declined those.  But, medical colleges also sent my video tapes to medical colleges; so, we created and inspired a pathway for Sickle Cell Disease Management.  Emory, I think in Atlanta, also developed a program very similar to that, but we were the inspiration or the early on beginners for the critical pathway in Sickle Cell Management in hospital settings.”\n\nDo you have any idea, statistically speaking, how many African-American people in Arkansas have Sickle Cell traits and/or Sickle Cell Disease?\n\n“Last; funny you should mention that or ask that question, July in 2016, I was asked to do an update to our legislature by Sickle Cell Disease in Arkansas; so I have a power point presentation I presented to the legislature and updated them on the status of Sickle Cell Disease in Arkansas.  The number that I came up with based on population are about 1,100 people have the disease and about 5,000 have the trait based on the 2015 population statistics in Arkansas.”\n\n\nSo about the population of about 14% African-American?\n\n“At the 2015 data, yes we do.  It was 13%; but now rounded off, it’s close to 14%.  So, we round the numbers off based on the population in Arkansas and said around 1,100 people should have the disease.”\n\nIs that comparable to other studies?\n\n“Yes, basically yes.  Nation-wise, it’s about 40 million with the disease.  It’s not just African-Americans, too.  People that can trace their ancestry back to the Mediterranean area are subject to Sickle Cell Disease.  In Arkansas, there is a little known fact, and other states too, that 2% of the trait population are Caucasian.  That may be due to miscegenation or mixing _______.”\n\nIs the disease versus the trait in Caucasians?\n\n“You won’t see that, you’ll see trait basically.  I have a few patients that actually have the trait.”\n\nNow that is about a unique a thing that we’ve heard in the times of these interviews; that’s the kind of thing I want to hear.  I’m glad you brought that up.   What else?\n\n“I have a lot of others; I formed a chairman of the board of directors for the Arkansas Health Access Foundation.  I think I was about the 3rd chair of the board, which was a group actually set up by the Arkansas Medical Society and also composed of the Hospital Association of Arkansas, State Board Of  Nursing, and Arkansas Dental Association; it’s an insecure type of support program basically where we sponsor their services to take care of someone who was referred to them.  It was the 2nd of its kind in the Nation.  The first of its kind was in Tennessee and Arkansas was the 2nd of its kind in the early ‘90s to have such a program and I’m on the chairman of the board of directors there.  George Warren, by the way, had me involved in that.”\n\nSo let me clarify your relation with your clinic; you’re totally independent and not part of a hospital group?\n\n“No, I am totally independent.”\n\nAre there other physicians here?\n\n“I have a nurse practitioner.  She has a doctorate in nursing practice and an RNP.”\n\nDo you ever look at becoming part of a larger hospital or another clinic?\n\n“That’s possible.  I would have resisted that idea in the past, but things change.”\n\nDo you do any other things besides your practice here?\n\n\n\n“I also assume myself being a diabetologist some of the national experts; endocrinologists are my personal friends, the former president of the ADA researcher, Dr .Gabin and the other guy who wrote the metabolic section in the Washington Manual, Dr. Jacks, are again personal friends as well.  My practice is a primary care/diabatologist.  It is interesting and we should talk about that; when the FDA was deciding whether or not to do a black box waring on Actose and Advandia, I was one of 12 primary care physicians that were flown to Philadelphia by Glaxo Smith Cline French to serve as an advisor to the company as to what they should do if FDA doesn’t move them.  We went up on a Saturday and the endocrinologists, those guys from different parts of the country went up on a Friday, so I was part of that group.  I had been a trained speaker for most of the majority compaines for diabetic products.  Zubera the first inhaled product that never got off the market, I was also involved in that.  I did research for Resalin.  Vita, I was a speaker for Vieta before it became available.  I have been a speaker for a dozen or half a dozen companies for different diabetic products.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3162/collection_resources/140817/file/260246#t=0.0,5490.86038"}]}]}]}