Bryson City Tales
- Book Review,
by Walt Larimore
Christian Retailing, April 15, 2002
"Reminiscent of authors like Philip Gulley, Larimore keeps readers laughing through one chapter and teary-eyed through the next."
Book Description
A true story with the heart, the humor, and the humility of a raw young doctor in his very first days as a new family doctor in a little town in the Appalachian Mountains.
From the Back Cover
"We walked out onto a side porch, with woven-seat rocking chairs strewn across it, to look out at the hills that were literally ablaze with color--reds and yellows were painted across the promontories, with amber and orange hues specked the bluffs. The spectacular view all the way to the peak of the distant Frye Mountain reminded us of why so many chose to visit this wilderness area during the fall color season." But the little mountain hamlet of Bryson City, North Carolina, offers more than dazzling vistas. For Walt Larimore, a young "flatlander" physician setting up his first practice, the town presents its peculiar challenges as well. Schooled in the latest medical technology, the eager doctor--his wife, Barb, and two-year-old daughter, Kate, in tow--is about to discover that there are some things in rural practice for which medical school just hadn’t prepared him. But he’s about to learn. His patients will often be his best teachers, and his classroom will range from hospital corridors and smelly barns to homey kitchens and mountain streams. With the winsomeness of a James Herriott book, Bryson City Tales sweeps you into a world of colorful characters, the texture of Smoky Mountain life, and the warmth, humor, quirks, and struggles of a small country town. It’s a world where the family doctor is also the emergency physician, the coroner, and the obstetrician, and where wilderness medicine is part of the job, search-and-rescue calls in the national forest are a way of life, and the next patient just may be somebody’s livestock or pet. And it is the place where the practice of medicine will forever shape Dr. Larimore’s practice of life and faith. Sharing the joys, heartaches, frustrations, and rewards of rural mountain medical practice, Bryson City Tales is a tender and insightful chronicle of a young man’s rite of passage from medical student to family physician. Laughter and adventure await you in these pages, and lessons learned from the strengths, foibles, and simple faith of Bryson City’s unforgettable residents.
About the Author
Dr. Walt Larimore has been a medical journalist since 1995. He hosted a nationally syndicated health news feature and has appeared on NBC's The Today Show; CBS Good Morning; CNN Headline News and PBS’ Family Works. He practiced family medicine for over twenty years, served as a volunteer physician for the U.S. Olympic Committee, and has been named in Distinguished Physicians of America, Best Doctors in America, and Who’s Who in Healthcare and Medicine. He has written or cowritten a dozen books, including: Bryson City Tales, Alternative Medicine, 10 Essentials of Highly Healthy People, and The Highly Healthy Child. He and his wife, Barb, have two grown children, and live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
They didnt tell me about this in medical school. And they sure didnt prepare me for this in my family medicine residency. Of course, like all well-trained family physicians, I knew how to provide for the majority of the medical needs of my patients in hospitals and nursing homes. Naturally I had been taught the basics of how to practice medicine in the office setting. But I was quickly discovering that physicians who headed into the rural counties of the Smoky Mountains in the third quarter of the twentieth century needed to know much more than these basics. I dont remember any school or residency lessons on the peculiar calls I would receive from national park rangers telling of a medical emergency in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Wilderness medicine, at least when I first started practice, was not in my black bag.
I dont remember any preparation for the unique medical emergencies faced by the Swain County Rescue Squad. Search-and- rescue medicine wasnt in my repertoire either, nor were the river rescues I would be involved with on the countys four riversthe Tuckasegee, the Nantahala, the Oconaluftee, and the Little Tennessee. And I know for certain that I had no training in caring for animals or livestockbut, sure enough, those calls were also to come to a family physician in the Smoky Mountains. Although my formal education had not prepared me for these types of medicine, when the need arose to learn and practice them, I felt up to the challenge. Although I was often perplexed by some of the unique aspects of practicing medicine in a ruraland, I first thought, somewhat backwardcommunity, I didnt find the demands particularly distressing. My first murder case, however, was a different story.
I had just moved a month before, with my wife, Barb, and our nearly-three-year-old daughter, Kate, from my residency in family medicine at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, to Swain County, in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. The county had only 8,000 residents, but occupied over 550 square miles. However, the federal government owned 86 percent of the landand much of it was wilderness. Over 40 percent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is contained within the borders of Swain County, which is also home to the eastern band of the Cherokee Indians, to one of the more southern sections of the Appalachian Trail, and to the beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The doctors in the county seatthe small town of Bryson City, North Carolinarotated the on-call assignment. When we were on call, we were responsible for a twenty-four-hour period of time, from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 A.M. We were on call for all of the patients in Swain County General Hospitals forty beds, the Mountain View Manor Nursing Home, the Bryson City and Swain County jails, and the hospital emergency room. We also provided surgical backup for the physicians in nearby Robbinsville, which had no hospital, and for the physicians at the Cherokee Indian Hospital, located about ten miles away in Cherokee, which had a hospital but no surgeons. While on call, we were also required to serve as the county coroner.
Since pathology-trained coroners lived only in the larger towns, the nonpathologist physicians in the rural villages often became certified as coroners. We were not expected to do autopsiesonly pathologists were trained to perform these but we were expected to provide all of the nonautopsy responsibilities required of a medical examiner.
Having obtained my training and certification as a coroner while still in my family medicine residency, I knew the basics of determining the time and cause of death, gathering medical evidence, and filling out the copious triplicate forms from the state. Not sure that I was adequately prepared, but proud to be the holder of a fancy state-provided certificate of competence any-way, I thought I was ready to begin practice in Bryson City ready to join my colleagues as an inexperienced family physician as well as a neophyte medical examiner. It was not long after our arrival that I was required to put my new forensic skills to work. I had finished a fairly busy evening in the emergency room my first night on call in my first week of private practice in this tiny Smoky Mountain townand, after seeing what I thought would be the evenings last patient, I crossed the street to our home, hoping for a quiet night and some much-needed sleep. Sometime between sleep and sunrise, the shrill ring of the phone snatched me from my slumber.
Dr. Larimore, barked an official voice. This is Deputy Rogers of the Swain County Sheriffs Department. Were at the site of an apparent homicide and need the coroner up here. Ive been notified that you are the coroner on call. Is that correct, sir? Ten-four, I replied, in my most official coroner-type voice. Then, sir, we need you up at the Watkins place. Stat, sir. Ten-four. Boy, did I ever feel official and important as I placed the phone in its cradle.
I rolled over to inform Barb of the advent of my first coroners case. She didnt even wake up. Nevertheless, I sat upright on the edge of the bed, beginning to feel the adrenaline rush of my first big professional adventure, when I suddenly moaned to myself and fell back into the bed. Where in the world is the Watkins place? I thought to myself. I hadnt a clue. But I knew who wouldMillie the dispatcher.
I hadnt yet met Millie face-to-face, but already I felt I knew her after only a short time in town. Every doctor knew Millie, and she knew everything about every doctorwhere they would be and what they would be doing at almost any time of any day. Equally important to me was that Millie knew where everyones place was.
So I phoned dispatch. She answered quickly and barked, almost with a snarl, Swain County Dispatch. What you want?
Millie, this is Dr. Larimore.
Buy from Amazon
Compare Prices
|
|
Home
