The old order changeth, yielding place to new ....
— Tennyson
Change happens when you’re not looking — and when you are.
You may not notice those baby steps into the future, silently piling atop each other, until a giant step gets your attention — a giant step like the new offices of Rowan Family Physicians at Rowan Regional Medical Park on Julian Road.
And you’ll certainly be aware when Rowan Regional Medical Center at the Mocksville-Confederate corner builds a new multi-story treatment tower.
Other signs of change come almost daily.
Signs like the ever-increasing number of young doctors practicing in Rowan County.
In the past 13 years, says Dr. David Smith, Rowan Regional’s vice president of medical affairs, the average doctor’s age has dropped from the mid-50s to the mid-40s or a little less.
You can see that in another big but unannounced shift in attitude. The hospital openly — and happily — introduces new doctors to the area with large newspaper ads that show their faces and credentials. Just a few decades ago, the profession considered it unethical to advertise.
But the story is best told in the numbers of new doctors — and the specialties — in Rowan County.
In early 1954, less than two years after Rowan Memorial Hospital had completed its first major renovation since its 1936 opening, the Post reported that the hospital had run out of space again — and had 58 doctors on the staff.
In 1988 — 34 years later — it had gone through several more building projects and had 82 doctors on the staff.
Today, the medical center has 142 doctors, as a result of a recruiting program headed by Connie Lindsey.
It has six hospital-owned practices that ensure medical care in areas on the verge of having none, as a result of the Rowan Medical Practices program directed by Tracey Castor.
Before 1988, Smith says, the general feeling was that health care should grow by chance.
But Richard Hurder, chief operating officer at the time, and the rest of the hospital’s administrative team, disagreed with that attitude.
“They felt that leaving growth to chance was not in the best interest of the medical community or the community at large,” Smith says. “They felt that a planned, systematic approach was in the best interest of the hospital and the citizens of Rowan County.”
So they started recruiting.
The process had several goals.
“They wanted to look at specialties,” he says. “And they wanted to reach primary care physicians to replace those who were leaving — and increase access to the system to try to keep health care in the community.”
They weren’t alone. On a national level, Smith says, advertising was moving into the medical field.
“National search firms were looking for special types of doctors,” he says. “and we were one of the first in a community our size to look at it that way. There hadn’t been an infusion of doctors in quite a while. Our doctors were getting older.”
So they canvassed doctors to find out what they thought the plan should be, what type of doctors they should try to recruit and how many.
“We used national guidelines, did our homework, involved the doctors and what they wanted,” he says, “and set up a physicians recruitment office.”
Lindsey is in charge
“She works with doctors who want help,” Smith says. “Some do that themselves, like some people use travel agents and some don’t.
“Connie recruits for doctors looking for a partner or practices who want to add a doctor or those thinking about retiring, and she also works with doctors who contact her because they have a possible interest in setting up a practice here. People ask, ‘What do I do to get involved?’ and Connie hops on it.
“We screen the number being considered and decide which ones would be best to bring into town.”
Then it’s like recruiting in any area.
“We bring them here, put them up at a bed and breakfast, introduce them and their wives to people in the community, show them various and sundry places to live, what’s available in schools, churches and the community, not just the medical community. They’re usually here a couple of days, and usually come for a second visit if everybody has a mutual interest.”
It’s worked well, he says, “extremely well.
“If you think what specialities were available in 1988 and what’s available now — it’s a lengthy list.
“We had no neurosurgeons here in 1988. Now we have three. No neurologists, now two. No rheumatologists, now one. No nephrologists, now two. No gastroenterologist, now one. More ophthalmologists, and with them have come laser surgery, lens implants.
“All the new technologies have come by virtue of getting new people in town. We had only one medical oncologist, now we have three, and in conjunction with medical oncology, which is chemotherapy, we’re progressing to radiation oncology with a new linear accelerator, which is radiation.”
Construction to house the linear accelerator is under way at the corner of Mocksville and Rutherford. “And that’s bringing more cancer technology into the community.”
But the need, he says, doesn’t ever get filled.
“We have a focused recruitment of African-American doctors because we want the face we present to the public to resemble the face the public presents to everybody else, and that hasn’t been the case in the past.
“It’s vital to the medical community to replenish the supply of doctors,” Smith says. “Even though the average age of doctors is down now, we have physicians who get a year older every year — and a growing community that requires more health care providers.”
The demand, he says, will grow as Rowan County grows, and that will get faster as Mecklenburg County grows past Cabarrus.
Buying practices
The recruiting activities that started in 1988 also spurred the hospitals to purchase practices and hire doctors. That began in the South Rowan area as doctors there neared retirement.
The hospital realized that it was going to be nearly impossible to get someone to establish family practices in some of those communities, so it set up Rowan Medical Practice, a “sister” non-profit organization that could buy a practice that was there and hire a doctor and a staff to run it — or establish an office in a place that had none.
And it has done all that.
“The process is multifold,” says Castor. “Where there’s a need for medical services not currently being met, we would look at purchasing a practice or establish a new one.”
South Rowan had three medical practices.
Population density figures in Rowan, she says, show a very large portion of the county’s population is in southern Rowan.
“So if we look at the people we serve, that population is a motivator for us. And if we look to the future growth of the I-85 corridor, we can expect it to go beyond what we’re seeing now.”
Decisions in South Rowan began when the hospital was approached by concerned citizens from Landis.
Dr. Richard McElroy, who had practiced there for many years, retired in 1988. That looked like the end of a doctor in Landis.
But the people wanted a doctor in their town, so they asked the hospital for help, Castor says, and got it. In 1994 the hospital recruited a doctor from Ohio and set up a practice in the same Central Avenue office Dr. McElroy had used.
“We hired the doctor, secured the facility and bought all the equipment,” Castor says. “It was pretty much a turnkey operation.”
But a couple of years ago, the doctor was about to have twins and wanted to return home, so the hospital replaced her in September with Dr. Mariane Lyons of Colorado.
Changes are also taking place in the practices of Dr. Winfrey Whicker and Dr. Victor Farrah in China Grove. The hospital has bought both practices and combined them at the South Rowan Medical Mall, but Whicker and Farrah are still the doctors in charge.
Rowan Regional also has developed a role in Cooleemee, where Dr. John Spargo practiced medicine for 40 years but had trouble recruiting a partner.
“It’s a small, rural town without a lot of recent growth,” Castor says. “It’s hard to find a partner in that kind of area.”
People there use Rowan Regional Medical Center as their hospital, so Rowan bought his practice and hired Dr. Joseph Zastrow to keep it going.
It has also established a doctor’s office in Granite Quarry for the East Rowan area though a temporary physician, Dr. Laurie Bumgarner, is providing the service because of the retirement of Dr. Abner Withers.
Moreover, Dr. Don Lomax sold his practice to the hospital, which recruited Dr. Chet Amin to take over when Lomax retired. Amin plans to buy the practice back next summer.
And the hospital hired Dr. Desiree Johnson and set up an office where she could provide care for those who have trouble getting it.
“If patients can’t get care, where do they go?” Castor asks and answers her own question. “They go to the emergency room that’s open around the clock with the most expensive equipment available for trauma. But that’s not as cost effective for colds and flu.”
Johnson’s practice was developed, Castor says, as a result of the medical center’s desire to provide medical care to all citizens of Rowan County, including African-Americans. Johnson is African-American.
New medical park
But all that doesn’t cover the changing face of medicine in the 21st century.
Barely into 2001 the hospital’s new Rowan Regional Medical Park — medicine’s equivalent of an industrial park located on Julian Road, halfway between Jake Alexander Boulevard and Interstate 85, where the hospital hopes to develop its own out-patient services — is about to welcome its first practice and “anchor” building.
With five doctors now — George Everhart, Ronnie Barrier, David DiLoreto, Jason Connelly and Kim Myers — and a sixth, Dr. David Majure, expected in August, Rowan Family Physicians has outgrown its offices near the hospital.
The doctors recently moved into a new office off Julian Road. It contains almost 20,000 square feet, 30 examining rooms and X-ray equipment, a bone densitometer and equipment for stress testing.
“We’re a family practice,” says founder George Everhart. “And that’s what this is about — providing more family doctors for Rowan County. We had outgrown our building. We needed to move to grow, and this medical park will enable other practices to grow also.”
It couldn’t have been done without the medical center’s “very wise board,” Everhart says.
“I don’t think there are many other communities that have this type, this quality of hospital leadership that will also enable other practices to grow.”
As well as Rowan Regional Medical Center itself, adds Smith.
The hospital’s own wish list for a new century would certainly include four or five more buildings and services in the medical park, he says, along with expanded programs in all areas at the medical center, less confusing ways to access and pay for health care — and nothing but private rooms.
Will that and more come about?
He doesn’t doubt it.
“Life,” he says, “is what happens when you’re planning something else.”
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