{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/vq2s46k94f/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Hiram Ward"]},"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":["2016-11-30 (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":["Hiram Ward, 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/000/293/454/small/HiramWardM.D.DVD.mp4_1759334794.jpg?1759334797","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161614/file/293454","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Hiram_Ward_M.D._DVD.mp4"]},"duration":4255.78488,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/293/454/small/HiramWardM.D.DVD.mp4_1759334794.jpg?1759334797","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161614/file/293454/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161614/file/293454/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/293/454/original/Hiram_Ward_M.D._DVD.mp4?1759334771","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4255.78488,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161614/file/293454","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161614/file/293454/transcript/84882","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Dr. Hiram Ward Interview transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161614/file/293454/transcript/84882/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interview with Dr. Hiram Ward      \n\nGood evening; my name is Sam Taggart.  We are in the home of Dr. Hiram Ward and his wife, Janice in Murfreesboro, Arkansas.  I appreciate you inviting us into your home and allowing us to do this interview.  Before we start, I would like to make a point that Dr. Ward is an institution in Murfreesboro.  I have known about that for a long, long time and this in particularly tickles me to be here to interview you.   The best 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“I was born at home on November 26, 1925 about four blocks from here on Main Street right across from the convenient store there.  That house has just been torn down over the last couple of years, but I was born there.”\n\nHow big a town was Murfreesboro when you were born?\n\n“About 700.”\n\nDo you remember who delivered you or have any idea who delivered you?\n\n“His name was Tom Offord.”\n\nI read something about “the Offords” at the Historical Center down here.  Is that the same family of Dale Offord?\n\n“I’m not sure.”\n\nThere has been an Offord practicing medicine here, or there was, for a century and a half or so.\n\n“I understand that he graduated from Arkansas in 1905; the doctor that delivered me.  I can remember him fairly well.  He died after I came in practice here with a ruptured aortic aneurysm.”\n\nReally; how old a man was he when he died or do you know?\n\n“83.”    \n\nHe lived a pretty full life.\n\nHow about you; Janice?\n\n“I was born in Amity on April 13, 1942.”\n\nMy wife says, “A woman who will tell you her age, will tell you anything.”\n\n\nTalk a little bit about your parents and your family; how did they come to be in Murfreesboro and where did they come from? \n\n“My mother and father both were the first that I know of living in Polk County, Arkansas.  My mother was at Big Fork, Arkansas and my father lived on a farm on the bank of the Caddo River between Big Fork, Arkansas and Norman, Arkansas.  This is where they got together and from there my grandfather moved to Daisy, Arkansas about two miles out in the country and had a farm.  My mother and father both taught school in one room school houses.  My father had Back Springs, Arkansas just east out of Norma and my mother at Waters, Arkansas, which later became Prime Ridge.”\n\nOh yeah, we were just three a couple of days ago.\n\nDid you know Dr. David Freed in Mena?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nHe was from Big Fork.\n\n“Yes, I was at a meeting at the Arkansas Academy of Family Practice when he was voted the award for being the oldest practicing doctor of a continuous practice in Arkansas.”\n\nIs that right?\n\nThat’s neat. \n\nI practiced in Mena for three years, so I knew Dr. Freed very well.\n\nSo, your father was a teacher and a farmer?\n\n“No, my father’s father was a farmer and my father was a teacher at that time.  When he came to Murfreesboro; well he went first to school in Kansas City for automobile and tractor school, then he came here to Murfreesboro to work at an automobile agency.  When I was six months old, they moved to Nashville and lived there for about six months working for another automobile agency.  They moved back to Murfreesboro and worked for a family here named Carroll and this was during the depression and it had snowed a bunch.  The building that they had the garage in, the roof caved in and they couldn’t afford to pay my father, so they gave him the equipment in the shop.  He started an automobile shop with that equipment.  This was sometime around 1930.”\n\nHow long did he stay in the automobile business?\n\n“Until he died; he was 76 when he died.  His shop that he was working in whenever he died was right next to M’s Café right there on Main Street.”\n\n \n\nI know where that’s at.\n\n“That building was built in 1946 and it was there until it was torn down last year.”  \n\nSo, how many kids were there; I know you had a brother?\n\n“That’s all; I had one brother and he was five years older than me.  Well, four years and nine months.” \n\nThe lady at the Historical Center told me that he was involved, just like you, in everything that happened in the town of Murfreesboro.  What kind of work did your brother do? \n\n“He worked for my father all of his life until he was injured and couldn’t work anymore.  He worked some after his injury.”\n\nDo you have pleasant fond memories of your childhood?\n\n“Yes, mostly; this was a small town.  My mother was sick all the time and about the time I started school, I decided that the doctors were not treating her properly and I was going to go to school to learn to fix this and get her well.”\n\nDo you know now what was wrong with your mother?\n\n“Yes, I know and I did just what I said.  I came back here and talked to my mother for a while and I finally interested her in the flower business and set her up in a flower shop and she never was sick anymore.”\n\nShe just needed to be outside the house?\n\n“She did not like housework.”\n\nSo how long did your mother live?\n\n“She died when she was 91.”  \n\nNow had you figured that out when you were 5 or6 years old?\n\n“I did figure out as I was going and decided then that I was going to med school.”\n\nThat was when you decided?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nReally?\n\nWhat was your mother’s name?\n\n“Ruth Evangeline Ward; her maiden name was Lily.”\n\n\nThat’s wonderful; that’s just wonderful.  \n\nSo you started to school at what age?\n\n“5 years old.”\n\nYou went to public school here in Murfreesboro?\n\n“Right.” \n\nHow big of a school was it that you went to?\n\n“Oh, probably 200-300 students at a time.  I don’t know exactly about that now.”\n\nPretty good size school.\n\n“Yeah, this is a county seat.”\n\nDid you have any particular interests as a small child or as when you were in school?  Any things that you were really interested in?\n\n“Well, I took every subject that was ever offered in Murfreesboro School except for home economics; I didn’t take it.  All the rest, I took.  I quit high school my senior year and went on to college.  That was right at WWII and they had what they called an accelerated program that if you have 12 high school credits, you can go on into college and so they would accelerate your education somewhat.  I went to college and took my transcript and the president of the college looked at it and said, “You don’t need to be on this program; you already have enough credit to start college now.  All you have to do is pay your tuition and sit down in class.”\n\nWhere was college?\n\n“Ouachita College in Arkadelphia.”\n\nWas there a particular reason you chose Ouachita?\n\n“Not that I know about.  My people were Baptist and that was a Baptist College at the time; maybe that was the reason, I don’t know why.”\n\nJanice; how about you?  What was your upbringing like?\n\n“I was born in Kirby at home.  I had a sister and a brother that was older.  My brother was the oldest and my sister was next.  We then had more; there were eight kids in the family.”  \n\nDo you have fond memories of your childhood?\n\n“Oh yeah.”\n\nYou lived out in the country?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nYou were a country girl and he was a city boy; so to speak?\n\n“We did a little bit of whatever.”\n\nDo you remember much about school?\n\n“Yes, I didn’t like school and the only reason I went was because I was a basketball player and we had a lot of fun.”\n\nAt what point in life did you guys met?\n\n“Well, I went to work at the hospital.”\n\n“We met when she was…”\n\n“12.”\n\n“We met when she was about 12 years old, 12 or 13, and she was a patient in my office when I first started; the first year I started my practice.”\n\nSo you have a long, long history.\n\n“I’ve known her a long time.”   \n\nDr. Ward, you said that you made up your mind when you were 5-6 years old that you were going to go to medical school.  Did you have any other people in your family who was in medicine; nurses, physicians, or dentists?\n\n“No, I did not at the time.   After that, I had a first cousin who became a doctor.  His name was Kenneth Lily and he was…..”\n\nI know Kenny, from Fort Smith; sure we know him.\n\n“He’s my first cousin.”\n\nIs that Right?\n\n“He’s the only other doctor that has been in my family that I know about.”\n\nThat’s on your mother’s side of the family.\n\n“Yes.”\n\n \n\nHis wife’s name is Iris; correct?\n\n“That’s right.”\n\nSo you get in school, take all the courses, and your wife said that she was a basketball player; were you in athletic?\n\n“No.”\n\nThat was not in your interests.\n\n“I have what they call loose ligaments in all my joints; they come out of place real easy.  I couldn’t play contact sports.”\n\nWere you a fisherman, hunter, or any of that kind of stuff?\n\n“Only as a teenager, I went fishing and hunting and that kind of stuff after we lived in the country.”\n\nWas school a big deal in your family to your mother and father?\n\n“Yes, both of them were teachers and it was important to them.”\n\nNot trying to put words in your mouth but to clarify, it was important to them that you succeeded?\n\n“Yes, it was.  Of course, my mother wanted me to be a preacher and I was also supposed to be a girl.”\n\nBoy you disappointed them on that go around.\n\n“I disappointed them all the way around.”\n\nBut you helped your mother find out what was wrong with her.\n\n“Oh yes; my mother, father, my brother, and I were a happy family.”      \n\nWas there anything about school that you particularly enjoyed? Any subjects or teachers that you enjoyed or really caught your attention or had an impact on you?\n\n“I suppose my 1st grade teacher is the one that I remember the most. Her name was Althea Alston.  Of course, she lived her in Murfreesboro and one of the last places that I knew she lived was Waldron, Arkansas.  She was in her 90s then, but she was old when I was in the 1st grade.  She’s been dead a long time.”\n\nDid religion play a big role in your family?  You said your mother wanted you to be a female preacher.  \n\n\n“My mother and my father were both big in the Baptist church when I was growing up until I was a teenager.  After that, their interest kind of waved their sail a little bit where they just weren’t as active as they were before.  But, my family was a religious family.”   \n\nYou were born at a time prior to the depression; so, you were growing up during the depression.  You were alive, but probably not old enough to remember, during the flood of ’27 and the flood of ’37.  Do you remember if those had any impact on you at all?  Do you remember those?\n\n“Well yes; I remember that.  I remember the first job I ever had; they paid me money outside of my family to work for the next door neighbor helping her clean up her chicken yard.  I worked for six hours one day and she paid me $.60; six little dimes.  That was more than a log truck driver was making at that time.”\n\nWhat about illness, other than your mother’s illness; did illness play a big role in your life or in your family?\n\n“No.  I was sick a lot when I was little but I can remember very little about that.  Of course, it didn’t affect me much.  My mother and father worried about it the first four or five years of my life, but evidently I outgrew it.  They treated you with laxatives and al l that kind of stuff back then.”\n\nAnd enemas.\n\n“Yes.”\n\nDo you ever remember having any encounters with people in the medical profession or in dental profession?\n\n“No.”\n\n Did you go to the doctor very much?\n\n“No.”\n\nDid they ever put a name to what it was that you had as a kid?\n\n“Well, they called it a lot of stuff, but the word they used was “congestive.”  Of course, they’d give you a laxative for treatment and when you got over that and felt much better, you thought you were well anyway.”    \n\nJanice did illness or diseases play a role in your family when you were growing up?\n\n“Oh yes.”\n\n\nIn what way?\n\n“That’s what I wanted to be when I was just a young kid.”\n\nYou wanted to be a nurse or physician?\n\n“Nurse; I was good at it.”\n\nWere your mother, father, brothers, sisters, or grandparents; any of them ill?\n\n“Nope.  I went to see them, but my grandpa was dying and I knew it.”\n\nHow old a man was he; do you remember?\n\n“I think he was about 80.”\n\nYou don’t know that; he didn’t know you then.”\n\nIt would seem that it would be hard in a community the size of Murfreesboro, Kirby, Daisy; these small towns to not have a group of extended friends that you grew up with and stayed close to.  Have you stayed close to people who you were friends with as a child?\n\n“No.”\n\nHave they drifted away?\n\n“We never had any close friends much.  I was always kind of a loner.”\n\nAny extended family; cousins and that kind of thing?\n\n“I didn’t have any family here other than distant relatives.”\n\n“He had a brother.”\n\n“Well, my brother yeah.”\n\nWhat did you do for fun growing up?\n\n“Fished and hunted.  I was a bicycle mechanic when I was a teenager.  I worked on people’s bicycles.  My father had a garage and I could work in there.”  \n\n“And he liked to run after girls; that was his big deal.”\n\nSure.\n\n“Yeah, but they wouldn’t run.”\n\nAre you saying they let you catch them?\n\n\n“Of course; they didn’t run.”\n\nYou said you started college half way through your senior year of high school.  That would have been what year?\n\n“1943; that’s close.  I think ’42 was when I started; no, it was January.  So, it was in ’43.”\n\nDid the education you got in Murfreesboro prepare you for college at Ouachita?\n\n“Yes, it did.  Murfreesboro High School did not have a very good reputation; but for me, I took everything they offered, like I said; except home ec.  I had a “B” average in high school and that’s all I tried to do.”   \n\nWere there any people in the community, other than that 1st grade teacher, that had a big impact on you in your junior high and high school years?\n\n“The superintendent of the school named W.R. Tully; he was kind of a hero to me.  He was the way I thought grown men ought to act.  But, I had no particular close friends in older people.”  \n\nYou started college in January of ’43; the war had started.\n\n“Oh yes, the war was on.”\n\nHow old were you at that time?\n\n“I was 17 when I started and 18 that fall.”\n\n Did you think that you were going to get pulled out of school to go into the Army?\n\n“I was.”\n\nOh, you were pulled out?\n\n“I went into the Army.”\n\nAt what point were you pulled out of college?\n\n“I had finished about half my sophomore year, or a little more than half my sophomore year.”\n\nDid you have much warning that they were coming for you?\n\n“No; I was drafted just like everybody else.” \n\nTalk a little bit about where you went for induction and your time in the service.\n\n“Well like everything else in my life, it was different from everybody else.  I went on the bus to Little Rock to be examined and when I was inducted and fellowed in, the captain looked at my paper and said, “this one is premed” so the colonial came over and talked to me and asked me \n\n\nwhere I was from.  I told him I was from Murfreesboro, Arkansas and he said, “I won’t hold that against you.”  He said, “Would you like to work here in Little Rock?” I said, “You sent for me; you tell me what to do.”  So, I was assigned to an infirmary there and the receptionist sent it and in six days, I was in the Army.   I did not take basic training.  They just put me in a laboratory and said, “Go to work.”  I’d never been in a medical laboratory in my whole life.”\n\nTalk a little about that; you essentially became a lab tech just over night.\n\n“That’s right.”\n\nWhere was the infirmary that you were assigned to?\n\n“It was on the military base at Camp Robinson in Little Rock.  I was there for about six months when they moved the induction center to Fort Smith to Fort Chaffey; well, Camp Chaffey at that time.  I was the only one working then there that had any knowledge of a laboratory, so I was the head honcho of the laboratory.”\n\nAfter six months, you became the head of the laboratory?\n\n“And we set up this operation center for people coming back from the war.  I was there about nine months when they decided I was healthy enough to go to war, so they sent me to Camp Crowder of Missouri to teach me to shoot a gun.  I told them, “I have been shooting a gun all my life. I can probably beat you now.”  At that time, I remember it was in August when I finished and was sent back home again just before I was shipped overseas to Korea.  This was post-war; the war was over when I went to Korea.”\n\nSo, WWII had finished by this time?\n\n“Yeah and we CDL I was stationed in was Bussan, Korea right on the southern tip of Korea; like how Miami is in Florida.  We were set up, or the hospital was, in an old Japanese school.  They moved a new hospital from the states to replace the one I was in because this one comes up through the South Pacific and involved people who had been killed and all that kind of stuff.  They moved to a building downtown in Bussan and I worked in a laboratory there. There were 10 laboratory technicians there that came with the new hospital, but our specialty number had been frozen and they could not be discharged.  They lifted that restriction and in about three months, all of them had gone home except me; I was the only lab tech left in the hospital.  I was at the laboratory and doing all the lab work at the hospital at that time.”\n\nThis was in ’45-’46?\n\n“I was discharged in “46, so this was in ’45.”\n\nWhat kind of lab did you do?\n\n\n“Oh everything in the laboratory in the hospital. I drew a blood count with an iron stick, but the main laboratory I did was the chemistry in this hospital.  I don’t know how to tell you other than the fact….”  \n\n “He did it all.”\n\n“That I ran the whole hospital and laboratory.”\n\nJanice, how did you spend the war?\n\n“At home.”\n\nWere you scared?\n\n“No.”\n\nWorried?\n\n“You know, I vaguely even remember that war.”\n\nDid you have brothers or uncles, any family members, who were in the war?\n\n“No; there were eight girls and one boy.  He didn’t.”\n\nDr. Ward, how did you feel when your foot hit the soil of the United States coming back from Korea?\n\n“Well, I was somewhat eladed.  It was somewhat easier than going over there.  I came back to Seattle and at that time small pox was going on in Bussan; so, everybody was getting vaccinated. I think I was vaccinated 5-6 times in 2-3 months.”\n\nHad you been vaccinated before you went over; like in school?\n\n“Oh, I had been vaccinated before.  None of that stuff took that I got when I was coming back.”\n\n So you didn’t get small pox?\n\n“I was working in the hospital and yes, I was doing an autopsy on a patient…..”\n\n“But you didn’t have it.”\n\nYou didn’t get small pox?\n\n“Did you get one?\n\nYou just got the immunization.     \n\n“Did you get a shot?”\n\n“I got 5-6 vaccinations.  It wasn’t a shot for small pox, it was vaccinations.”\n\nWhen you came back to the states; did you go right back to college?\n\n“Well; yes, after awhile.  When I came back my brother in law welded the trusses for my dad’s garage and I worked there from then on until my father died.  Then, I went back to college and was still doing premed at that time. I went that year and started the next summer. The med school called and told them that they wouldn’t accept the requirements that I had at that time to get in; so that day, I went and told them, “Figure up my bill, I’m gone.”\n\nWere you a good student?  When you came back, were you a better student than before you went over?\n\n“No, I did well.  I always did well in school; I didn’t have a problem with that.  When I first went to med school, I heard how hard it would be and all that kind of stuff.  I really studied for the first six weeks and in Biochemistry, we had a test in there and they come around with the test and I had the highest grade in class.  I made a 98 and I thought, “Oh, I don’t have to work that hard anymore.  I graduated 18th in my class and we started with 91.”    \n\nDid you enjoy medical school?\n\n“Yes, I did.  I worked while I was in school.”\n\nLet’s go back and talk about the process of getting into medical school.  You applied twice? \n\n“I applied; yes, two times and I was accepted both.  I was still going to school as I had not finished my premed and I still hadn’t finished at the time it was in.  I went and talked to Dr. Jeff Banks, who was head of the admission’s committee at the med school and when he looked at me, he said, “You’re not old enough to be in med school anyway. You go back and finish these requirements and come back next year and you’ll get in.” So, I did that.”\n\nAnd you did.\n\n“And I did.  I was still just 21 years old, but I looked like I was 15.”\n\nWith a whole lot of experience; you’d had 4-5 years working as a lab tech.\n\n“Yeah, I’d been in the medical profession for a long time.”\n\nWere any of the people who taught you in college that stood out to you?\n\n“Yes; my chemistry professor at Ouachita.  His last name was Provine; Dr. Provine.  He was one also who made out part of our basic science test we took after our second year in med school.  I said, “I recognized the test that you filled out” as I talked to him after that.  He said, “Yes, I could tell which paper was yours by just your numbers.”\n\n\nSo you applied to medical school, had an interview with Jeff Banks, and then the second time, you got in.  What year did you get in to medical school?  \n\n “1948.”\n\nLet’s talk a little bit about medical school itself and the first year.\n\n“Well; the first year, I was scared you know.  As I said I took the chemistry test after I had been studying hard for six week and mad e a98 on that test; that was the highest grade in the class and I decided right then I wasn’t going to study that hard.” \n\nDid you find any of the courses that first year particularly hard or particularly interesting?\n\n“Really all you have is anatomy and chemistry that first year.  The second year; I didn’t find anything in particular in med school hard like what they’d said.  I think I graduated 18th in my class when we got out.  They told us that the people who made all “As” did not practice medicine anyway; they went into research.”\n\n Did you work during college?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nWhat kind of work did you do?\n\n“Lab technician at Arkansas Baptist Hospital.  ___________ was where it was then.”\n\nBy the way, you will be the third person who we have interviewed who was a lab tech at Baptist Hospital while they were going to school.\n\n“Jim Burnett.”\n\nWell, Ted Lancaster from Walnut Ridge also. \n\nTalk about working during college or medical school.  In college, where did you work there?\n\n“I worked in the chemistry lab and they put me into teaching, but keeping the lab before I was through the first year.  The last year I was there, I was teaching the class for junior credit at Ouachita.  I set up all the desks and so forth and told the professor, “One thing I won’t do is grade my own paper” as I was taking the same course at the same time.” \n\nWhat were your favorite subjects?\n\n“Chemistry probably.”\n\nOf course. \n\nWhat about other parts of the sciences, English, Literature, or history?\n\n\n“No, I did them because I had to.” \n\n I notice that you read a lot.\n\n“Oh yes; I have always read all my life.”\n\n You have some fiction there and you like all kinds to read?\n\n“This is science fiction that I’m reading now.  I guess I’ve had too much reality in my life anyway; so now, I’m in fantasy land.” \n\nLet’s go back and talk a little bit more about medical school.  You enjoyed medical school?  You didn’t find it as hard as you thought it would be.\n\n“No, it wasn’t as hard as what they’d said.”\n\nJanice, what did you do during all this time?\n\n“Having kids.”\n\nHow many children do you have, what are their names, when were they born and what kind of work do they do?\n\n“Three; I’ve got one Cheryl that worked in the hospital where he and I worked.  My two boys, Marty and Eddie Pipkins, ended up in the log woods.”  \n\nDo they still live around here?\n\n“Yeah; one of them, Eddie the oldest one, lives with us.” \n\nDr. Ward was there ever any question as to what you were going to do with your medical education; where you were going to go and what you were going to do?\n\n“Well, no; I intended to come back to Murfreesboro from the very beginning.  I had no aspirations to being a city doctor ever.”\n\nDid your work in the laboratory change or affect that at all?\n\n“Not even affected it; it was just a job.”\n\nWhat about the second two years of medical school; what was that like?\n\n“I enjoyed that, especially the patient contact stuff.  I can’t say that there was anything particular that was different from any other place; just going through med school.”\n\nYour med school took place in McArthur Park; in that school?\n\n“Yes, it was there.  I never went to school in any of the new stuff.”  \n\nWere there any teachers in medical school who particularly stood out to you? \n\n“Yes, but I don’t remember his name.  One of the teachers in my sophomore year was a good teacher, but he was different from anybody I’d ever had.  I’ve forgotten even the course; because I’m 91.  But anyway, he was one that stood out in my mind.  All the rest of them were pretty well; we did have one professor of pediatrics that had to wait four years to get his degree because he was not yet 21.”\n\nReally; wow.\n\n“He was a little younger than he should be for the job that he had from my viewpoint.  At that time, he was younger than me.  He was young, but he didn’t act like it. ”   \n\nWhere there any rotations that you did in that second two years that really caught your attention to where you said, “Oh, I really enjoy this and I really like this more than I do other things”?\n\n“There was one that was my least favorite; surgery.  I liked all the rest of it.”\n\nWhat about OB?\n\n“OB was fun; I enjoyed it.”\n\nWhere did you do your hospital work in Little Rock in those days?\n\n“Oh, I interned at Baptist.”\n\n I mean when you were a student.\n\n“I worked at the Baptist Hospital when it was at 12th and North.”\n\nIn those days students went to Baptist and St. Vincent’s or was there a University Hospital?\n\n“University Hospital was built after.  We had a hospital attached to the med school at the time I went to school at McArthur Park.”\n\nIs that right?\n\n“It was sort of a hospital.”    \n\nWe are talking about a time frame when there were a lot of things going on in the United States.  There were a lot of things going on in Arkansas.  Polio was a big deal at that point in time.  Do you remember much about that?\n\n“Oh yes; we had four iron lungs at the University and someone had to be there at all times in case the electricity went off.  You had to pump this thing or these people died.”\n\nWere you involved in the care or treatment for polio patients much?\n\n“Not much; a little bit, but not much.”    \n\nSo you finished medical school and you went to where for your internship?\n\n“Arkansas Baptist Hospital on 12th and North Street.”\n\nDid you enjoy that?\n\n“Yes, I did; all except the surgery part. I did surgery as a rotation.”\n\nDo you remember any of the surgeons, internists, or OB people that you worked with there?\n\n“I remember most all of them; but most of them, I don’t remember their names.  It’s been too long and I’ve forgotten names.  I can tell you lots of things about them, except the name.  But, I’ve never been good with names, not even with patients.  I can tell you what’s the matter with them and the kind of medicine they are taking, but I think if they don’t know their name, we’re in trouble.” \n\nYou finished your internship; at what point did you start looking around and saying, “Ok, it’s time to start getting real about this.  Let’s get out of school and start setting up practice.”\n\n“Well just right then, I came home from med school, graduated, and started setting up practice here in June.”\n\nSo right out of your internship.  How many other people were in the practice of medicine here when you came here?\n\n“One; Dr. Duncan was his name and he was my doctor when I was growing up.  Dr. Alford now was also still here, but he was 82 years old at the time.  He was seeing a few patients at home, but not really in practice.”\n\nWhat year was that that you finished your internship?\n\n“1953.”\n\n I know that the Pike County Memorial Hospital was built in 1958 or ’59.\n\n“There was no hospital here.” \n\nWere there doctor’s office hospitals here at that time?\n\n“No, just Dr. Duncan here at that time.  His office was in the same building where I stated practicing and four months after I came here, he died of a heart attack.”\n\nSo for a while, you were it.\n\n\n\n“That’s right.  In this county, there was Dr. Hilton in DeWitt and Dr. Gould at Glenwood; both of which were more than 90 years old.  Dr. Hilton was blind and Dr. Gould only worked part of time. I had this whole county and every county that touches us.” \n\nWere you married at this time?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nDid you have children?  I think I heard you say this is yawls third marriage?\n\n“My first wife is Via and she is the mother of both of my children.”\n\nYou had two children; how old are those children, what are their names, where do they live, and what do they do?\n\n“My daughter is Ellen Ruth and she lives in Little Rock.  She is a computer programmer, which is not what she’s working at now.   In fact, I don’t even know what her job title is.  My son, Richard Allen Ward, lives in California and is an electronic engineer.  He’s been out there for years and was born in 1950, so he must be 66 now.”\n\nHow hard was it to come to Murfreesboro essentially by yourself practicing medicine?\n\n“Well, of course I was scared and I did not have any idea about how to go about it, but I just did it anyway.  At that time, an office call was $2.00 and I always; well I tried keeping books and all that kind of stuff like sending bills when I started, but found out it didn’t even pay the postage.  I’ve never sent bills since then.  People pay if they can and if they can’t, they won’t; I never did worry about it.” \n\nSo what kind of medical records did you keep? \n\n“Well at first, it was on a 5x8 card that I kept for records.  Later on, of course, requirements got to be more strict all the time and I started keeping a manila folder; one for each family.  It had all the family in that folder and later on changed the manila folder for each person in the family.”  \n\n Did you find setting up practice to be difficult; hiring people and setting up records?\n\n“No, that wasn’t very hard.  Financing the start up, even though that wasn’t too hard I don’t guess.  I bought equipment from a doctor who had retired, Stovers from Little Rock, and I can remember what I paid for my office equipment and what I set up; $1,390.00, which I did not have.  I had to borrow from the bank to set up my practice.  It was six months before I could do anymore, but I did make ends meet from the very start.”\n\nDid you have much debt after college and medical school?\n\n\n“I didn’t have any.  I was broke, but I didn’t have any debt.”\n\nDo you know what tuition was in medical school?\n\n“No, I was on a GI Bill.”      \n\nYou were here a couple of years before any hospital; were you instrumental in getting the hospital built?\n\n“Yes, I guess I was.  One of my classmates came here a year after I’d been here a year or two and he had accepted money from the Navy while he was in med school, so he owed them a year or two of practice.  He fulfilled that and then he came to Murfreesboro.”\n\nWho was that?\n\n“Granville Jasper Floyd; he was about five years older than me.  I was one of the babies in my class.”   \n\nIn the time frame of 1953-1954 and 1958; what would you do if you had somebody who needed to go to the hospital?\n\n“We used the hospital in Nashville.  Sometimes, I’d go to Nashville 4-5 times a day.”\n\nYou had hospital privileges in Nashville?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nDid you do C-sections with your OB practice?\n\n“No, I did not do surgery ever; except a time or two I had to do some minor surgery.  I remember doing an umbilical hernia one time; but mostly I did not do surgery.  I assisted at surgery sometimes with several of my patients in Nashville, but…”\n\nSurgery was not your thing.\n\n“Surgery was not my thing.” \n\nHow long did you do OB?\n\n“More than one time; I’d say I quit in the 1970s.  I’m not sure what the date was.  I quit accepting patients for OB before the other doctors did here.  I would be on call in the emergency room and I delivered about a third of the babies anyway at that time.  Finally, I decided that there wasn’t any point in that and I quit accepting any OBs or delivering any OBs for anybody.  Then the rest of them quit OB at that time.  That was the end of OB in Murfreesboro.”\n\nWhere would the OB patients go after that?\n\n\n“Nashville.”\n\n In those days how long a drive was it from here to Nashville?\n\n“About 15 miles.”\n\nNot very long way.\n\n“It’s closer in time than it is to Little Rock.”\n\nLet’s talk about the impact of having the hospital here, north of town built up there on the hill?\n\n“How was it easier on me?\n\n Did it change things for you?\n\n“Oh yes; it probably increased my practice somewhat.  I was seeing all that I could all the time anyway, but I could see more people without having to be traveling much.”\n\nDid you do a lot of house calls in those early days?\n\n“Yes, I made house calls all over Pike County and all over the counties touching Pike County.”\n\nDid you gradually start cutting back on house calls at some point?\n\n“No, I made house calls for people that called.   I guess maybe it was 10-15 years ago when I quit that and still made some. Of course I did hospice work for several years; about 15 years ago.  Of course, you do house calls all over the state. We had six counties for that.”\n\nWhen was the hospital built?\n\n“It opened in ’58.”\n\nDid you have any involvement in setting up the lab at the hospital?\n\n“Well, my lab girl who worked in my lab did the lab work at the hospital when it started.”\n\nDid the medical community here grow after the hospital was built?\n\n“No.”\n\nIt didn’t?\n\n“Dr. Floyd and I were the only doctors here, I guess, until he died.  He died in his early 50s.”\n\nReally; that’s pretty young.\n\n\n“Well, he had rheumatic heart disease.  When he was in med school, he had the murmur already.  He did not take his prophylaxis and he had an acute rheumatic fever at age 50 and he died of a heart attack in ’51.”\n\nIn your first few years in practice; were there any things that really scared you or you thought, “I’m not prepared for this”?\n\n“No, I had to make do with a lot of stuff.  We didn’t have a hospital.  We had a pneumothorax that needed set up with suction in the hole; that kind of thing.  So, I made one hell of suction out of IV bottles and taped it to the floor.  I hooked up suction to his chest and expanded his lungs.”\n\nDid you ever intubate anybody or do anything like that?    \n\n“I didn’t, no.”\n\nSo Janice, when did you come into the picture?  You said that you worked at the hospital; when did you start working at the hospital?\n\n“Um; I really don’t know, seems like I worked forever.”\n\n“She worked there about 20 years.” \n\nDid you work at the hospital during the beginning days of the hospital or was it later on?\n\n“It was just a little later on.”\n\nSo, here you are set up and practicing medicine; did medicine turn out to be what you thought it would be?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nHow did your family generally adapt?   Your children; how did they adapt to your being a doctor and being on call all the time and being gone?\n\n“Neither of my children will have anything to do with the medical profession; they did not like being children of a doctor.  The rest of my family liked it fine.”\n\nWere you involved in the community outside of medicine; church or anything like that?\n\n“Very little.”\n\nWere you in medical politics or real world politics?\n\n“No; I didn’t not even approve of medical politics.”\n\n \n\n\nDid you make the right course in your career path to do what you wanted to do medicine?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nSo you enjoyed doing it?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nHow long have you practiced?\n\n“From ’53 when I started here; so that would be 62 years now.”\n\nAre you still practicing?\n\n“Well no; I see a few people who people won’t see them because they’re taking pain pills, but no outside of that and I don’t accept any new patients.”\n\nSo you still have a practice then?\n\n“Well, not really; I don’t practice anymore.  I just see a few people.”\n\nHere or in the office?\n\n“Right here.”\n\nI think Anna Bray told me that she thought you kind of cut back when they closed the hospital.\n\n“We were trying to close.”\n\n“The hospital is a thing that maybe you ought to know about.”\n\nYeah.\n\n“Doctors at the clinic that worked for St. Joseph; the clinic is next door to a drug store out there now; they resigned from the hospital; they weren’t going to do any more emergency work and they quit.  That left me as the only practicing physician in the hospital at all.”\n\nWhat year was that?\n\n“I think it was ’06 or ’07.  I believe it was ’07; but anyway, they had been notified in June that their malpractice insurance, which was carried by St. Joseph, as they work for them, wouldn’t be covered anymore working in the emergency room.  So, they resigned from the hospital staff and wouldn’t see people in the hospital nor would they come to the hospital.  That left the hospital with every intent to close; but they did not tell the administrator until the last week in December.  The first of the year was when they quit.  This aggravated me of course and I told them, “Don’t shut anything down; I’ll take call 24-7” until you can find somebody.”\n\nThis was when you were 81 years old?\n\n“Yes; I did that for about 3-4 months.  That’s a job, but we did fine.”     \n\nThat was a job.\n\nDid you just accept whatever their insurance would pay or did they pay you to staff the ER?\n\n“All the above.”\n\nWere you able to get any other physicians on staff?\n\n“Well yeah; Dr. Gray came here, he was an osteopath that came here.  He had some problem with his license and that kind of stuff; so everything he did, I had to countersign.  He came after a certain time and he did more than osteo-work after that.  He was a good physician by the way.” \n\nHow many physicians are in Murfreesboro now?\n\n“Now, two.”\n\nYou and one other?\n\n“No, not counting me; I’m retired.  Dr. Floyd; by the way, I delivered Dr. Floyd.”\n\nIs that right?\n\n“What’s the name of the other doctor?\n\n“Dr. White; no, he’s retired.”\n\n“Dr. White is retired.  I can’t even remember.  There is a woman doctor in this clinic out there.  They have an advance nurse practitioner and a physician’s assistant. This is medical and the only ones that are practicing on a full time basis in Murfreesboro.”\n\nHow do all those people do?  Are they doing a good job?\n\n“That’s not a fair question.”\n\nOk, I retract the question.     \n\nAre they busy seeing patients?\n\n“Yeah, there’s no other place for them to go.”\n\nSo what is the highest number of physicians that has been here while you have been working here since ’53?\n\n\n\n“I guess three.  That would have been when Dr. Shodray was here.  Here he had a foreign license and a green card.  He was doing his work before he got his license for this country.  He was an excellent physician and he’s presently doing emergency work in Miami.”\n\nYou can interpret this question anyway you want to; you are 91 years old and been practicing medicine for 60+ years; have you been well compensated?\n\n“Yes, I made enough money to live and enough to retire on; I did not want anymore.  You can make more money than that doing something that I didn’t do, but I was never interested in that.  It was not my problem.”\n\nWhat has been the most gratifying part of practicing medicine for you?\n\n“Seeing people get better. Just seeing somebody that is sick and them getting better; saying “thank you” and shaking your hand.  This is the part that makes it go.”\n\nAt what part did you start to think, “I may need to retire someday”?\n\n“I didn’t do that yet.”\n\nGreat answer; that’s a really good answer.\n\nHow did you feel to be working with a doctor who you brought into the world?\n\n“Alright, although he doesn’t do things quite like I would, but the education is different now than what it was when I went to med school.”\n\nAre you still in good health?\n\n“Yes, I think I’m in excellent health for 91.”\n\nI know I was told, but I don’t know how accurate it is; you walk five times around the city park every day?\n\n“I walk five miles; that’s eight times around it.”\n\nI’m sorry; so you stay active?\n\n“I don’t do that every day.  I’ve walked 850 miles this year.”\n\nHas getting some exercise every day been a part of your life?\n\n “No; the main part of it has been since 2007 when I had a stroke in 2006.  I missed two days of work with that.  I have as spastic left leg still from that.  I had a left hemiplegia at the time.”\n\nHave you gotten back most of your function from that?\n\n\n“This leg is still spastic and my left arm is different, but I can use it fine.  As long as I exercise; see I have no difference in size of my legs.  Part of the muscles will waist away if I didn’t do this walking.”\n\nI think you said you did miss two days work after all.\n\n“I did after I had the stroke.”\n\nWhat’s he like to live with Janice?\n\n“He’s something; he’s one of a kind.” \n\nYou seem to have a very wonderful sense of humor; both of you do.  Has that been there all your life?\n\n“Oh yeah, if you couldn’t laugh you couldn’t live.”\n\nWould you do it over again or would you change things if you could?\n\n“I don’t know for sure if I would or not.  I’m sure it would change because times are nothing like they were when I started out.  The whole thing is different.  I would not want to start practicing medicine now.” \n\nDid you stick around and active long enough to get involved in computers and medicine?\n\n“Oh yeah.”\n\n“Well, I keep records on this computer.  What I keep medical records on, it’s not online and nobody can get into that.  There are no medical records in any of this other stuff.  It’s all in that one.  I don’t ever put anything online that has to do with medicine.  I don’t agree with that; there is no way you can keep people from hacking into that. It can’t be done.” \n\nSo do you do electronic records for anyone for insurance purposes or Medicare?\n\n“No, I don’t do insurance.  I don’t do Medicare.  I don’t do Medicaid.  I don’t do any of that.”\n\nDid you do it before you retired?\n\n“Oh, I did then; yes.”\n\n Did you do computerized records?\n\n“Well, my office did.” \n\nIs there anything about Murfreesboro or Pike County that is unique?  Things that you would‘ve seen here or dealt with here that other people would not?  I bring this up because \n\n\nthe lady down at the Historical Center was saying that some of the cinnabar mines are at the bottom of the lake.\n\n“That’s right.”\n\nAnd there’s thought that that may be the source of some of the Mercury contamination that’s in the fish. Is there anything new or different about this area that wouldn’t be seen other places?\n\n“Well the cinnabar mine was one thing and of course, this was hard rock mining and they did not use any water.  This rock dust was just in the air.  We had multiple cases if silicosis from that.”\n\nThe town Murfreesboro looks like it has the feel of a tourist community.\n\n“Really?”\n\n“It pretty well is.”\n\nWhen did that start?\n\n“Uh, I’d say probably 30-40 years ago when the diamond mine began to admit people to dig.  I don’t know exactly how far.”\n\nDid that have any impact on your life here or the economy here that you were aware of?\n\n“No, it did not affect me.”\n\nDo you have any interesting stories about the practice of medicine or stories about life, you already told us several wonderful stories, about Murfreesboro that we should know about?      \n\n“Well, nothing l can think of off the top my head.”\n\nWhat is the most unusual payment that you ever received for a house call or a visit to the office?\n\n“Oh, people have given me eggs, molasses, ham, or whatever because they didn’t have any money.  I had one child that was 8 years old and he came in and paid for his delivery.” \n\nI love that; that’s good, I like that.\n\n“By the way a delivered was $50.00”\n\nWhat do you think the future of medicine holds?\n\n“It’s going to be entirely different from anything that I would recognize as a practice of medicine.  From my view point, medicine is no longer a profession; it’s a business now.  I don’t approve at all.  I think human life is more important than that.  I think it still ought to be a \n\n\nprofession.  I know this is just a personal way of looking at it and I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not anything like it was when we were practicing.”   \n\nNow you didn’t come to that conclusion recently.  You’ve had that conclusion all your practice life.  Isn’t that right?  I’ve heard you say something very similar back when you first came into practice.\n\n“Oh yes; I was always critical; show me results.  I don’t care what you promise, show me results.”\n\nI have one last question; I want you both to pretend I’m not here and you are talking to your great, great grandchildren.  What do you want them to know about you and what would you wish for them?\n\n“I would like for my children to be able to support themselves and to live their own life without help from anybody and I would like the same thing for my great grandchildren.  I only have one grandchild and not likely to have any great grandchildren.”\n\nThis is also for the children here in Murfreesboro.\n\n“The children that grow up in Murfreesboro are not going to be happy here until our law enforcement changes.  Our law enforcement here is bad.  It is especially hard on teenagers.”\n\n“They plant stuff on people; on these kids.”\n\n“I don’t agree with it at all.  Actually, Pike County is a laughing stock of all the counties around because of the judicial system and the police department.” \n\nJanice, how about you?\n\n“Same thing, except he is making it a little better than what it really is.”\n\n“I did not want to exaggerate.”\n\n“Well…”\n\n“I did not exaggerate buy the way.”          \n\nI really do appreciate you inviting us into your home today.  This was so much fun to see yawl and hear the story of Murfreesboro and you guys.  It was just great fun.  Thank you for the interview.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161614/file/293454#t=0.0,4255.78488"}]}]}]}