| When I was doing my Surgical
Training at Emory/Grady in the early 70's, Cathy and I moved to
Mountain Park in Gwinnett County, a small community between
Stone Mountain Park and Snellville. I used to commute to Grady
every day but could make it in about 20 minutes in my 72 Mustang
Mach I. Not too much traffic on Highway 78 at that time
and the Stone
Mountain Freeway had just been completed (only two lanes to Snellville and Scenic Hwy
to Lawrenceville). If I had to make a middle of the night
emergency run to Grady or the VA Hospital, Cathy would call
ahead to the Dekalb County Police and let them know that I would
be hauling down Stone Mountain Freeway and that I had a medical
emergency and to please not stop me. I never did get stopped (for
that anyway).
In those days, it was allowable for the Grady
Surgical Residents to supplement their income (our pay as a
Surgical Resident then was about $7,500 / year) by moonlighting in
the emergency rooms in the surrounding areas of Atlanta.
Sometimes I
worked 20-22 nights per month after my day at Grady by
covering from 7 PM to 6 AM the emergency rooms of Joan Glancy
Hospital in Duluth, Buford General Hospital in Buford, Button
Gwinnett Hospital in Lawrenceville, and Forsyth County Hospital
in Cumming since there were no full time emergency room doctors
yet. I was in charge of
staffing the ER's of these hospitals from 1974-1976 with my
fellow Grady residents. Great training, (I even delivered a baby
in OR #2 at Joan Glancy Hospital in 1976 when I was a chief resident
in ENT)! We took care of a lot of trauma then and didn't really
worry about AIDS, Hepatitis exposure, or MRSA.
This exposure and great relationship with
the doctors of this area made it a natural for me to stay with
my family and set up a practice in this area since there were no
Ear, Nose and Throat Physicians or plastic surgeons in the
county at that time. There were no MD Anesthesiologists in
Gwinnett or Forsyth Counties at that time either, until the
early
1980's, but that job was most capably handled by the most
amazing group of Nurse Anesthesiologists I have ever known and
respected in my life. There was not cautery used at that time
in surgery for tonsillectomies and I don't think that gloves
were worn all the time for these non sterile procedures either.
When I set my practice up in Gwinnett County
in 1976, I believe that the population was only about 180,000
for the county, multiples of that now. When I was on the
Steering Committee of founding the Emory Eastside Hospital in
Snellville (then known as Gwinnett Community Hospital) in 1979,
there were only seven doctors on that committee. I believe there are close
to 500 doctors on that staff now.
When I started my practice, there were
only two medical insurance companies, Blue Cross/ Blue Shield
and Medicare. I think that I now participate on over 100
different insurance plans. Great progress, right?
I'll keep adding to this section periodically
as I ask my colleagues what they remember about the early days
working from the shoulders of the giants like Drs. Miles Mason
Jr, George Tootle, Cecil Miller, Gene Kennedy, Tom
Hamilton, Dan Martin, Fayette Sims Jr, Sterling Harris, Jim and Mark
Mashburn,Bob Dunn in Cumming, Ed Bowen, Bill
Martin, Norman Fried, and Taher Bagheri in Snellville.
Thanks to
all of these guys for paving the way for us! |
