After attending the American College of Allergy meeting in 2002, my wife and I drove from San Antonio to Pettus, Texas, and saw the old place again after more than forty years. The three stores were still there: in a half century, no one had found time or inclination to add a fourth. I introduced myself to the general store’s current owner who, of course, had not been born when I had my practice there. He was very interested in knowing that there was once a physician’s office on the second floor. In fact, he had never ventured upstairs, nor had anyone else done so in many years. I suggested we go up and visit.
What a surprise! It looked as if no one had entered the office since the day we left town. The same travel posters were on the wall, although they were now dusty and faded. The same paper—store wrapping paper—was on the examining table. The exorbitant fees charged in my practice were listed on the front door: three dollars for an office visit, five dollars for a physical, eight dollars for a house call. There was a sign below the price list suggesting that pregnant women come in for at least one examination prior to their due dates. Home deliveries would be made when possible, and family members who intended to conduct a home delivery, probably without medical assistance, were cautioned to come in for at least some discussion on what to do with unexpected complications, where to go, what interim treatments could be given and, almost more important, what not to do.
Time may have come to a standstill in this Pettus second-floor office, but fortunately medical care had not.
Not long ago, back home in Charleston, I was going through some old boxes in my garage and came upon the wooden sign I’d kept from the Pettus office. The sign had been attached to the front of the general store that made up the building’s ground floor. It simply said: “Charles H. Banov, MD, Office upstairs.”
Just a few days earlier, an attorney friend and I were talking about our careers. He asked me a very profound question: If I had a few words to put on my tombstone describing what I’d like people to remember about my life and any possible contributions, what would they be? His question reminded me of an old story I had heard years ago. Johnny Cash wrote a song about it.
There was a wonderful old physician in Arkansas whose funeral was attended by everyone in the town where he had practiced. Throughout his career, when his patients couldn’t pay, he had continued serving them, even when he had to move his office to a rundown second-floor space. On his grave the people of the town hung his shingle: “Doctor Brown. Office Upstairs.”
For now, there is life to be lived, tears to be wiped, smiles to be enjoyed and people to be helped. But when the time comes, the greatest compliment I could ever receive from my family, friends, colleagues or patients would include the words of that wooden sign. Just hang it on the tombstone, and that will be enough: Here lies Charles H. Banov, MD, Office upstairs.