While that voice and those words always stuck in my mind, they often got pushed aside by more immediate concerns: long hours in medical school, building a career in medical research, getting married, raising children and acquiring the material accouterments every father wants for his family. All the hallmarks of a “successful” life, according to today’s standards. When these goals were met and that busy time of life was over, retirement followed on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
My wife and I built our home in a gated community surrounded by yacht clubs and golf courses. But when I left the compound and its luxurious buffer zone for the other side of the island, I was traveling on unpaved roads lined with leaky bungalows. The “lifestyle” of many of the native islanders stood in jarring contrast to my cozy existence. I was stunned by the disparity.
By means of a lifelong habit of mine of giving rides to hitchhikers–remember, I grew up without a car–I got to talking to some of these local folks. And I discovered that the vast majority of the maids, gardeners, waitresses and construction workers who make this island work had little or no access to medical care. It seemed outrageous to me. I wondered why someone didn’t do something about that. Then my father’s words, which had at times receded to a whisper, rang in my head again: “What did you do for someone today?”
Even though my father had died several years before, I guess I still didn’t want to disappoint him. So I started working on a solution. The island was full of retired doctors. If I could persuade them to spend a few hours a week volunteering their services, we could provide free primary health care to those so desperately in need of it. Most of the doctors I approached liked the idea, so long as their life savings wouldn’t be put at risk by malpractice suits. They also wanted to be relicensed without a long, bureaucratic hassle. It took one year and plenty of persistence, but I was able to persuade the state legislature to create a special license for doctors volunteering in not-for-profit clinics, and got full malpractice coverage for everyone from South Carolina’s Joint Underwriting Association for only $5,000 a year.
The town donated land, local residents contributed office and medical equipment and some of the potential patients volunteered their weekends stuccoing the building that would become the clinic. We named it Volunteers in Medicine and we opened its doors in 1994, fully staffed by retired physicians, nurses, dentists and chiropractors as well as nearly 150 lay volunteers. That year we had 5,000 patient visits; last year we had 16,000.
Somehow word of what we were doing got around. Soon we were fielding phone calls from retired physicians all over the country, asking for help in starting VIM clinics in their communities. We did the best we could–there are now 15 other clinics operating–but we couldn’t keep up with the need. Yet last month I think my father’s words found their way up north, to McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the maker of Tylenol. A major grant from McNeil will allow us to respond to these requests and help establish other free clinics in communities around the country.
According to statistics, there are 150,000 retired doctors and 400,000 retired nurses somewhere out there, many of them itching to practice medicine again. Since I heeded my dad’s words, my golf handicap has risen from a 16 to a 26 and my leisure time has evaporated into 60-hour weeks of unpaid work, but my energy level has increased and there is a satisfaction in my life that wasn’t there before. In one of those paradoxes of life, I have benefited more from Volunteers in Medicine than my patients have.
This Father’s Day, of course, my dad is not around. And my children are all grown and out on their own. But now I remind them the best way to celebrate this holiday is by listening and responding to their grandfather’s question: “What did you do for someone today?” That’s my father’s most valuable legacy–to me and to my children.
