End of an era

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 12th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Who will care for tomorrow’s patients?

Nearly half of America’s doctors are 55 or older—a third of those are set to reach retirement age within five years.

REICHARD: One speciality is feeling the pinch especially hard: obstetrics and gynecology. WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson reports.

SOUND: [LEAF BLOWER]

KIM HENDERSON: It’s Monday morning. A mowing crew is out early blowing off a parking lot. It’s for patients at the only OB/GYN practice in Brookhaven, Mississippi.

DOCTOR: Good morning. (Good morning.) How are you? (I'm doing okay.)

That’s Stephen Mills. It’s a big week for the doctor. At age 67, he’s retiring after 38 years at this practice. He’s delivered more than 4,000 babies.

But Mills says it’s the right time for him to step away. Especially after battling a malignant tumor in his leg.

STEPHEN MILLS: I'm doing fine. All my scans are clear, but the Lord numbers our days, and I could be doing great now and then a year from now be sick.

Mills wants to spend more time with his wife and their 15 grandchildren.

NURSE: She's here for her follow up. (DOCTOR: Okay, yeah . . . )

I asked Mills why he, as a young resident, chose obstetrics and gynecology. His top reason? Relationships.

MILLS: You're part of the family, because you deliver someone's baby. Everybody remembers who delivered what baby and you have that relationship for—many times—30, 35 years.

Mills also liked being a surgeon.

MILLS: I like surgery that you can fix things. Most gynecology surgery you do, and it fixes the problem . . .

Mills’ work gave him an opportunity to live out his faith, too.

MILLS: Obstetrics was wonderful 90 percent of the time, but that other 10 percent was incredibly heartbreaking, and delivering difficult news and being with families during tough times also was an opportunity for ministry.

AUDIO: [SOUND OF OFFICE]

Mills’ practice is busy, and putting a firm retirement date on the calendar has been harder than he thought. His group can’t seem to recruit new doctors.

MILLS: The first question we get asked is, you know, “Do I have to work on the weekend, or do I have to work at night?” In our generation, we just assumed that came with the territory, but I think that the new generation of docs, most of them are really looking at, you know, what kind of lifestyle am I going to have . . .

Mills admits being on call is hard on a family. His two youngest daughters once told their mother they thought their daddy lived at the hospital. But being in small town practice has its perks.

MILLS: I could slip out of the office, or I could slip out of the hospital, and go to a soccer game or go to a kindergarten program and then go right back to the hospital.

Mills and his partners are also good at slipping between their office and the labor and delivery suite at the hospital.

MILLS: And then I go through this door, and we go across the street. When we built this clinic in 1988, the proximity to the hospital was important to us. We didn't realize how important it was. . .

HENDERSON: How far away?

MILLS: In college, I could throw the ball about 50 yards, 60 yards. So I would think it's about 60 yards.

Mills made the walk countless times.

MILLS: Sometimes running, sometimes in street clothes, sometimes in scrubs.

The OBs also had a sort of secret entrance to the hospital.

MILLS: Patients would think we would just appear out of nowhere, but we actually had a back stairwell . . .

The practice has grown through the years. It has about 24 employees.

MILLS: This is our waiting room. It's been expanded since we first got here…

There are four doctors, but three are retirement age and have dropped their OB role. That leaves only one doctor to deliver babies. They’ve had to contract OBs from other places.

MILLS: We do our due diligence, and we check them out and make sure they have good credentials, that they're good doctors, but nevertheless, when our patients show up over there, they have, you know, Dr. Smith, they've never seen before.

And it’s not just their practice. There’s a national shortage of OB/GYNs. Mills predicts big change.

MILLS: We're going to have nighttime doctors and daytime doctors, and we're going to have docs that are what we call locum tenens, or contract doctors, that take the nights and weekends . . .

Mills expects the quality of medicine to be fine. But he is concerned.

MILLS: It's going to be different. And I guess the public at large will acclimate to that, but it makes me a little sad, because I don't know that the relationship between OB/GYN and patient is going to be quite as close as it has been in the last 30 years.

And it’s that element—the people element—that has him feeling sentimental about retiring. But Mills looks forward to spending more time with his family. And maybe some medical mission trips are in his future.

MILLS: We've been to Kenya a couple of times. We've been to Honduras a couple of times. We're just praying about and asking God for some direction as far as all that and and we're, we're excited about the next chapter. It is bittersweet. I'm going to miss relationships. I'll miss that patient/doctor relationship, but, but it's the right time for me. I don't have any doubts.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Brookhaven, Mississippi.

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