My Heroes

Fri, 07/27/2012 - 09:10 — Patch

Wow! I was recently sent a couple articles about two doctors who are the representatives of a medical profession dedicated to caring for people. What I don't understand is why they have not been on the cover of every newspaper as giants in American medicine. I had to hear about the amazing Dr. Leila Denmark from the British medical journal Lancet and Dr. Dohner from People Magazine. For several years we have heard the politicians and pundits argue for and against Obamacare and the curse of "socialized medicine", but it is simply inexcusable that we do not take care of all our citizens, equally and gleefully. Please do not think that the global garbage that passes for healthcare delivery today in the US has anything to do with health or care or delivery. Dr. Denmark and Dr. Dohner are real doctors – shout their stories! Please read these pieces. It is about the thrills, joys and rewards of the real practice of medicine. Yum!

  • Dr. Leila Denmark - excerpt from the Lancet
    Paediatrician who practised for more than 70 years. Born on Feb 1, 1898, in Bulloch County, GA, USA she died on April 1, 2012, in Athens, GA, USA, aged 114 years. By the time Leila Denmark retired in 2001, at the age of 103, she had cared for thousands of children through a career that spanned seven decades. She began practising medicine before there was baby food and before many immunisations were developed. Yet as medicine progressed over the next 70 years, Denmark remained true to an early belief: good parenting, good nutrition, and common sense afford a child a good chance at a healthy life. Read More >

  • Dr. Dohner - excerpt from People Magazine
    When Russell Dohner was a boy, he had a terrifying bout of seizures. "When I came out of them," he tells PEOPLE, "there would always be [our physician] Dr. Hamilton. I decided I wanted to be like him." After medical school, he hung out a shingle in the next county over. His fee: $2. That was in 1955. And while times have changed, Dr. Dohner hasn't. He still sees patients seven days a week out of the same office, keeps handwritten records with the help of his longtime nurse, Florence Bottorff, 88, and has been charging patients $5 a visit since the '70s. Read More >