[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 24 (Tuesday, March 8, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   TRIBUTE TO DR. JOHN M. SMITH, JR.

 Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to 
an outstanding Kentuckian who dedicated more than four decades of 
service to the people of rural Lee County, KY. Dr. John M. Smith, Jr., 
will be honored as the Beattyville Lee County Chamber of Commerce 
Citizen of the Year this weekend for his outstanding commitment to the 
community.
  When Dr. Smith first practiced medicine in Lee County in 1951, he was 
obligated to stay 1 year. His first year of medical school at the 
University of Kentucky was funded with assistance from the rural 
medical fund of the Kentucky Medical Association. In exchange, Dr. 
Smith was required to serve 1 year in a county identified by the State 
as needing a doctor. He chose Lee County, in part because of his own 
roots in nearby Perry and Jackson counties. Now, 43 years later, he 
continues to serve the people of Beattyville and Lee County faithfully 
and compassionately from his own clinic.
  John Smith returned to the eastern Kentucky mountains after a stint 
as a Navy physician. Although he grew up in the region, he surely was 
not fully prepared for the unique challenges which face a country 
doctor. In Beattyville circa 1952, no pharmacy or x-ray machine was 
available, the nearest hospital was about an hour away, and many homes 
could not be reached by car.
  Legendary Kentucky writer Joe Creason once profiled Dr. Smith in the 
Louisville Courier-Journal. Mr. Creason wrote of Dr. Smith being 
transported by tractor and rowboat to reach patients and of his 
accepting almost any form of payment, including country hams, chickens, 
and farm produce. Ironically, Mr. Creason's article was published just 
1 year after Dr. Smith began his practice in Lee County. I would 
suspect that he could now write a book on the unusual, yet rewarding 
experiences of this dedicated physician.
  Dr. Smith's early years as a doctor were not the first time he gave 
selflessly to help others. Prior to medical school, he enlisted in the 
U.S. Navy as a line officer during World War II. A lieutenant on board 
the U.S.S. Weeden, Dr. Smith participated in the campaign to take back 
the Philippines and traveled to Nagasaki just after the bomb was 
dropped to pick up United States prisoners there. Dr. Smith also served 
during the Korean war, as a Navy physician at the Louisville recruiting 
station.
  John Smith also continued his medical education after he established 
his practice in Beattyville. He attended the Armed Forces Institute of 
Pathology in Washington, DC, completed a residency in radiology at 
Memphis Methodist Hospital and the University of Kentucky, and gained 
experience as a staff radiologist in Morehead, at the Woodford County 
Hospital, and at the Lexington Clinic.
  Clearly, Dr. Smith could have pursued countless opportunities to take 
his practice to a larger city or work in a hospital of national 
prestige. However, the seventh-generation Kentuckian returned to Lee 
County whether he has truly made a difference in the lives of thousands 
of rural citizens. His experience, dedication, and compassion make Dr. 
John Smith a role model for young Kentuckians who are considering a 
career in medicine.

  Mr. President, I congratulate Dr. John Smith for his recognition as 
Beattyville-Lee County Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year and for 
the many years he has devoted to the people of Lee County and 
surrounding communities. Please include an October 26, 1952, article 
from the Courier-Journal in today's Record.
  The article follows:

          [From the Louisville Courier-Journal, Oct. 26, 1952]

                        Beyond the Call of Duty

                            (By Joe Creason)

       Here's an example of the success of the Medical Scholarship 
     Fund, created to provide more doctors for the rural areas of 
     the state.
       John M. Smith, Jr., has a pretty good idea he'd be in for 
     some unusual times when he hung up his shingle and started 
     the practice of medicine in Beattyville, Ky.
       After all, he knew beforehand that Lee County was one of 
     some 40 in Kentucky that was critically short on doctors, 
     having then--in 1951--only one for a population of more than 
     8,000 people.
       And he knew six other neighboring counties of mountainous 
     East Central Kentucky--Clay, Owsley, Jackson, Wolfe, Powell 
     and Menifee--likewise were on short rations indeed, so far as 
     doctors were concerned.
       So he must have suspected he'd face a lot of situations and 
     experiences not generally covered in medical textbooks.
       But, even with all that forewarning, it's extremely 
     doubtful if Dr. John M. Smith, Jr., expected the time would 
     come when a tractor would be the only way he'd be able to get 
     into a remote area to see a patient.
       Or that he'd have to cross the rain-swollen Kentucky River 
     in a rowboat in the dead of winter with a half-blind woman at 
     the oars.
       Or that he'd ever take country hams--at the exchange rate 
     of $1 a pound--in line of payment for medical services.
       Or that a dozen and one other unusual experiences would 
     come his way in less than a year and a half.
       For that's just the length of time Dr. John M. Smith, Jr., 
     one of the first 12 products of the Rural Kentucky Medical 
     Scholarship Fund, has been practicing in Beattyville.
       The Rural Medical Fund, sponsored by the Kentucky State 
     Medical Association in co-operation with the University of 
     Louisville School of Medicine, was started in the 1946-47 
     school year. The purpose of the fund, raised by public 
     subscription, was to provide better medical care for the 
     people of rural Kentucky. Medical students needing financial 
     help may borrow from the fund and make repayment on the basis 
     of a year of practice in a doctor-short section for each year 
     of aid.
       To translate the intention of the fund into a real 
     situation, John Smith received help from it for one year--
     1946-47. That was his first in medical school and the year 
     the first of his two sons was born. Having very little he 
     could use for money, he borrowed in order to get started in 
     school. After that he needed no help.
       In return for that year of financial assistance, he was 
     obligated to devote one year's practice to a county approved 
     by the State Board of Health as needing doctors. After 
     looking over the field, he chose Lee County.
       If John Smith is a fair sample, then the Rural Medical Fund 
     can be pronounced quite a large success. He now has served 
     his year of obligation, owns a home in town and shows no 
     signs of leaving, which is exactly what sponsors of the fund 
     were hoping for. They reasoned that if they could get young 
     doctors into rural areas for a year or so, some of them, at 
     least, would settle down to permanent practice.
       During his year-plus in Lee County, Dr. John Smith has 
     given medical help to hundreds of people from a rather 
     populous and mountainous seven-county area who, conceivably, 
     would have had none otherwise.
       Moreover, the people he serves are the kind who don't go 
     rushing off to the doctor with every stomach-ache, or some 
     such.
       ``Most of these folks are stoic and will suffer a long time 
     before coming in,'' he says.
       ``Why, I've had patients with pneumonia walk in to the 
     office from seven or eight miles away.
       ``I do all I can for them and send them to the hospital--
     the nearest one is in Richmond, 52 miles away--only in 
     emergencies,'' he adds. ``After all, many of my patients 
     can't afford to go to the hospital with every ache and pain 
     like city folks.''
       Sponsors of the fund actually got a more than somewhat rare 
     bargain in John Smith. They didn't get just one rural 
     doctor--they got two. For his wife also is a doctor, a 1945 
     medical graduate of New York University, and she recently 
     opened an office at Booneville, 12 miles south in adjoining 
     Owsley County.
       Although there were two doctors in Booneville, both were 
     old. One had suffered a stroke. Smith was receiving so many 
     patients from that area it seemed a perfect spot for his wife 
     to open an office to relieve some of the strain.
       Now that he's settled in Lee County, John Smith has become 
     a family doctor in every sense of the word. He's known as 
     ``Doc'' everywhere and can call most of the folks he passes 
     on the road by their first names. He can point to children he 
     brought into the world. He is taken into confidences, sought 
     out for advice on every conceivable situation.
       Since opening his office, he has been too busy even to 
     attend a single movie. The only days he has been away from 
     work was once during a medical meeting and the couple of days 
     he was out last winter with the flu.
       Incidentally, that case of the deep sniffles came in the 
     line of duty. He was called to see a woman in the Oakdale 
     section of the county who was sick with pneumonia. He had to 
     follow a narrow path above an ice-laced creek in reaching the 
     home.
       As he inched along the bank, it suddenly caved in and he 
     was dunked, bag, baggage and pill bottles, into waist-deep 
     water. He went on and completed the call before changing 
     clothes, something he'd raise Cain with a customer for doing, 
     and the result was flu.
       Smith keeps a pair of galoshes in the back of his car for 
     hiking over terrain not suited even for the most sturdy 
     horseless carriage. And it's quite often that a car can't 
     make it back into a particularly rough, hilly section. As, 
     for instance, when the husband of a sick woman had to ride 
     him in and out on a tractor, the only transportation that 
     could make the trip.
       Then there was the boat ride last winter that he--a veteran 
     of three years of destroyer-escort duty in the Navy--never 
     will forget. He had gone to call on a patient who lived on 
     the other side of the North Fork of the Kentucky River some 
     distance above Beattyville. The only way across the river was 
     by boat. The return was long after sundown and in inky 
     darkness. The pilot was a partially blind woman.
       ``I crouched in the bottom of the boat,'' he recalls, ``and 
     wondered about my life insurance.
       ``How she hit the tiny landing on the other side of the 
     river in that darkness and pulling into a swift current. I'll 
     never know.''
       Numerous times he has been called to see patients in parts 
     of the area he doesn't know. In such cases, the family of the 
     sick person will more or less blaze a trail for him. They'll 
     place a forked stick at the place he's supposed to turn off 
     the main road and leave assorted other signs along the way.
       He gets night calls, of course, but not as many as might be 
     expected.
       ``These folks are sturdy, and they'll usually stick it out 
     until morning,'' he says.
       But the night calls do come. This spring he was roused at 1 
     a.m. He went with the caller to see the man's wife, gave her 
     some pills and returned home to bed.
       Less than 30 minutes later, he was brought out of bed 
     again. It was the same man.
       ``Better come again, Doc,'' he urged, ``she ain't a bit 
     better.''
       Lots of patients have been unable to pay cash for doctor-
     work. So Smith has taken almost everything in payment. He 
     keeps well supplied in ham, chicken and farm produce.
       ``At first my wife had a little trouble understanding what 
     some patients were talking about,'' he says.
       ``Folks would come in and say, `Take a look at this kid, 
     Doc, he's been daunceyin' 'round,' and she'd have a hard time 
     figuring what they meant.
       ``But since I was born in Perry County and grew up in 
     Jackson County, I knew when they talked about `daunceying 
     'round' or `punying 'round,' another very descriptive bit of 
     speech, they meant the child was sort of dragging around and 
     showing little life.''
       Since he opened his office, another young doctor has come 
     to Beattyville. Sam D. Taylor, born there, and also a U. of 
     L. graduate, returned home in August to start practice. The 
     two have worked out a scheme whereby one day a week they take 
     the other's office calls. That allows them to get one day all 
     to themselves.
       Smith has his office in what was an old drugstore across 
     the street from the Courthouse. He has divided the gunbarrel-
     shaped space into a reception room, office, drug room, 
     examination room and delivery room. He delivers babies at 
     homes, but prefers to have expectant mothers come to his 
     office where he has all necessary equipment, including 
     oxygen. He keeps them 10 to 12 hours after the delivery and 
     sends them home in an ambulance.
       Beattyville has no pharmacist, so Smith has to dispense his 
     own pills and medicines. Neither is there an X-ray machine in 
     town, although he hopes install one soon.
       Besides his unusual doctoring experiences, Smith has the 
     rather unique distinction of having served as an officer in 
     two different branches of the Navy within a five-year period.
       After being graduated from the University of Kentucky in 
     1942, the 30-year-old Smith went into the Navy as a line 
     office. Upon his discharge, he entered medical school and was 
     graduated in 1949. Then, following his intern work, along 
     came the war in Korea and he volunteered to go back into the 
     Navy, this time as a medical officer. He served for more than 
     a year in Louisville at the recruiting station.
       His second discharge came July 6, 1951. He opened his 
     office 10 days later.
       In the nearly seven years since the Rural Medical Fund was 
     set up, 64 students have received $100,450 in financial help. 
     Twelve of those students, including Smith, have served at 
     least one year in rural areas. Nine are still there. Of the 
     three who left the rural field, one is in the Army, one is 
     sick and one moved to another state.
       Besides Smith, other fund-helped doctors with at least one 
     year in rural practice are O. C. Cooper, Wickliffe; Carson E. 
     Crabtree, Buffalo; Oscar A. Cull, Corinth; William G. Edds, 
     Calhoun; Clyde J. Nichols, Clarkson; Benjamin C. Stigall, 
     Livermore; William L. Taylor, Guthrie, and Loman C. Trover, 
     Earlington.
       Six other doctors who were helped by the fund completed 
     their internship in July and now are practicing in the 
     country.
       ``Rural practice gets next to a fellow,'' John Smith says. 
     ``You have to make a lot of changes from what they say in the 
     books--you have to be down-to-earth and forget all about 
     dignity and professional manners at times.
       ``But there's an awful lot of satisfaction in serving 
     people who really need help.''
       Which pretty nearly describes the country doctor.

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