Family Practice in a Rural Oregon Community

Upon arriving to Cave Junction, I was slightly nervous but mostly excited. It's been quite a while since I've spent time in a small town - Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Oakland, and Portland are certainly large urban areas. Downingtown, Pennsylvania, where I went to middle and high school, is populated with 8,000 people....I thought that was a small town (my backyard was a corn feed farm!!) Whereas San Francisco is close to 800,000 people, Cave Junction is a mere 1,600.

When I first talked to the doc, he told me he and his 4 children live in a 2 bedroom house, and they weren't sure where I was going to sleep. I was a little concerned....it seemed impossible to me to raise that many kids in such a confined space! The house is actually pretty huge, lots of open spaces, lots of deck space and crafts spaces and a game room - the kids have it pretty good! My doc and his family live on a 60 acre plot of land a few miles from the "downtown" area. They've put a lot of effort into a beautiful garden, plush with grapes, blueberries, squash, strawberries, basil, garlic, peas, peppers, and probably a whole bunch of other veggies I couldn't identify. A few apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees spot the land close to their small house. The rest of the land is mostly light forest, and the kids fall oak and madrone trees during the end of summer to sell as firewood to the townspeople. The good doc dabbles in wood etching, silversmith-ing, pottery, rock collection and jewelry making, woodwork, and probably a whole slew of things he forgot to mention. Hobbies do not go unheard of in this household. His kids are so well-behaved, they do well in school, and they care not for the material possessions that sometimes us city-folk get carried away with.

I probably got a slightly biased view of their seemingly relaxed, weekend lifestyle. He's on call every 7th week, which means he might get paged a dozen times a day, for which he calls back and either briefly counsels his patients or tells them to go to the Urgent Care or the Emergency Department of the nearest hospital (which is in Grants Pass, about 30 miles away). He doesn't make house calls, he doesn't have to answer to any hospital - he's his own boss for a private family practice that he built from the ground up after working at a group clinic bogged down with bureaucracy. He has Wednesdays off, and he told me that he would really like to share the practice with someone else so that he can work less and take more vacations, a real family man! He jokes with me, "If you're interested, when you finish your residency, come on back!"

It's tempting. And this is only my impression from Saturday and Sunday with his family. We went on some neat excursions, tempting poison oak while on a hike through his property, mountain biking down the hill to pick 5 gallons of blackberries for pie, swimming, playing cards and Snooker (sp?). I have been instructed to pick a project to complete before leaving - I think maybe a pair of earrings would be fun. He's got some fancy Jade that he'll cut up if I desire. This week should be a great experience.