‘End of an era’

On Dr. Larry Patton’s last day of work, 87-year-old Virginia Oedewaldt was treated for the final time by not just her doctor but also her close friend.

“He hugged me and said, ‘You’re special. I’m going to miss you,” said Oedewaldt, who has been a patient at Jefferson Street Clinic for more than 40 years. “I just feel terrible. I told him he has to stay in business until I’m gone. ... I’ll miss Larry terribly. I feel like I can call on him as a friend,” she said.

After a 40-year tenure, Patton decided to retire the family practice that was first opened by his father Laurence Patton, in spring 1940.

And many say it is an end of an era, in which a doctor knows each patient by name.

“There have been third -and fourth-generation families that we have helped take care of,” said Patton of closing his business for the last time. “That’s a lot of history. It was tough.”

Patton said his father was originally from the El Paso area and decided to open his practice in Morton.

“Why he chose Morton, I really don’t know,” Patton said.

After spending much of his childhood with his father at the clinic, Patton decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a career in medicine.

Patton did his undergraduate work at Northwestern University in Evanston and then graduated from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, he said. He came back to work with his father July 1, 1969.

“I just wanted to be back in a rural setting,” he said.

When asked what it was like working with his father, Patton simply said it was “interesting.”

“It’s always interesting working side-by-side with a parent in a professional setting,” he said, adding that it was a lot of fun, too.

“You have a parent for a mentor, both personally and professionally.”

While he learned a great deal from his father, the best piece of advice his father ever gave him was to “work hard and be honest” in all aspects of life, he said.

In 1987, his father retired, and Patton took over the clinic.

Patton said there were many benefits in keeping the business a private practice for the entire 70 years.

“You have total control of the business and total control of the patient population,” he said.

However, running a private practice soon became very difficult because of the changes in medicine. For instance, medicine is now driven by insurance companies and insurance drug plans, he said.

“Medicine began to be a business more than just patient care; that’s part of the problem with medicine today,” he said. “In time, patient care and health-care delivery became second. It just became an absolute nightmare.”

Added Patton, “If I could do just patient care, I would not have retired.”

Bev Berger, a nurse of Patton, joined the clinic in 1987. She said Patton was a great employer, along with an excellent doctor.

“He treated (every patient) as a person, not a number,” she said. “He always listened.”

Like Patton, Berger said she has mixed feelings about leaving the business. She also noted the changes in the way medicine is done, especially in the last year.

People have become numbers, she said, and the paperwork was overwhelming.

“The government plays such a big part in all of this,” Berger said. “You don’t have the freedom to do what you have to do for patients.”

Patton’s retirement has been the talk of the town, according to many Mortonites.

Mark Johnson, owner of Knapp-Johnson Funeral Home, was a patient of Patton’s, along with his three kids and wife.

“We’re heartbroken,” he said. “He’s a great doctor.”

Johnson said he was treated by a doctor like Patton when he was a kid. He described Patton’s examining room as something “right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.”

“It was a throwback,” he said. “It’s the end of an era where the doctor knows your whole family and knows you by name.”

Johnson said Patton would often sit on the table next to him during the examination — an act not found very often in most hospitals.

“When you walk in there, it felt like family was taking care of you,” he said.

The medical practice will be assimilated to Morton Methodist MedPointe, Patton said. The building will be sold. 

Patton said he plans to stay in Morton with his wife, Jackie. They have three children, Nicole Gibson of Morton, Scott Patton of Morton; and Eric Patton of Phoenix.

They also have six grandchildren.

Patton said he will miss the patients more than anything after retirement.

“I’ll miss the patient care. That was always the fun part,” Patton said. “But part-time practice is just not practical anymore.”