After more than five decades of practicing medicine in Geauga County, Dr. Robert A. Evans retired in 2015 at the age of 80.
After more than five decades of practicing medicine in Geauga County, Dr. Robert A. Evans retired in 2015 at the age of 80.
But, rather than resting on his laurels, Evans took the advice of his daughter, picked up a pen and started on a 75-page autobiography titled “My Life as a Country Doctor.”
Self-published through Amazon, the short memoir traces his life starting in his home town of Lackawanna, N.Y., where he was a laborer at Bethlehem Steel for three years while working his way through pre-med school at the University of Buffalo.
Evans’ recollections are peppered with dry humor and insights into half a century of medical practice and people he has known in the Middlefield area.
After graduating from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Missouri, Evans said he visited his brother, Al, who had a general medical practice in Middlefield and was very busy delivering babies, who usually arrived at night.
“My brother hadn’t slept for two days,” he said during an interview.
He sent Al home to get some sleep and covered for him.
“I really had intended to return to New York. I had everything I owned in the back seat of my car,” Evans recalled.
He had passed his license exams in both New York and Ohio, so remaining in Middlefield was an option.
“I realized how busy (Al) was and just stayed and went to work,” he wrote in his straight-forward style. “That was in 1962 and I’m still here in Middlefield, now retired and writing these memories.”
There was another reason he felt tied to the community.
“(Al had) a cute little girl working for him,” Evans said.
In his book, he wrote, “Janet is probably the best thing in my life. We married in 1963 and had our 50-year anniversary in 2013.”
Obstetrics made up a large part of the practice. Evans said he and Al delivered about 100 babies a year, often traveling to hospitals in Madison, Cleveland or Warren.
“The complexion of the practice changed when Geauga Community, our local hospital, approved us to bring our practice to that facility,” Evans wrote. “We became the first D.O.s (doctor of osteopathic medicine) on staff at Geauga Hospital.”
Even that 15-minute trip was too long for some expectant mothers. Evans said he delivered two babies in his office and one in the parking lot in the middle of winter.
Injuries were common, such as the Amish man who had a chainsaw injury to his leg. When the man refused to consult a plastic surgeon, Evans sewed him up.
“Actually, it turned out fine, but he had a good-sized scar. It was probably the worst wound I ever repaired,” he wrote. “The Amish clients were a pleasure to work for and usually really needed care when they came in.”
Evans recounts his years serving as coroner, physician at the Sisters of Notre Dame, jail physician and Middlefield Township trustee.
By 1992, with the practice having multiple physicians available, Evans gave up delivering babies. The Middlefield Care Center that caters strictly to the Amish was just getting going, but he found the hours required to attend births arduous.
“I loved doing OB — if it could only (have been) in the daytime, not at 2 or 3 in the morning,” he said during the interview, adding he didn’t do well when deprived of sleep. “My life got much easier,” he said.
Evans shifted to the growing field of nursing home medicine, taking courses in geriatrics and long-term care and becoming a recognized expert, he said.
While tracing his own practice, Evans discusses the evolution of the medical field, the skyrocketing cost of malpractice insurance that burdens medical practices, the benefits of having more women in the field and the death of independent hospitals.
His brother donated land and created MCC, commonly known as the birthing center, in 1990, so Amish women could have their babies without going to a hospital.
“I delivered 21 babies there,” Evans said. The brothers welcomed Dr. John Tumbush into the practice around then, but the cost of malpractice insurance was about $100,000 per year and Evans decided to cease his OB services.
“I said, ‘We can’t afford $100,000 to deliver babies,’” he recalled, adding he was satisfied with office patients and nursing home work for the last 25 years of his career. “Besides, people prefer a lady (doctor) for deliveries,” Evans said.
MCC is a 501c3 organization with special licensure for Amish and other members of “plain clothes” communities, said Jaime A. Fisher, nurse administrator of the center.
Fisher worked with Evans before his retirement at two long-term care facilities.
“He always encompassed the nurses. He always listened to you,” she recalled. “He’d say, ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’”
That was especially true when he visited the elderly suffering with psychosis or dementia, Fisher said.
“He would definitely take what we had to say into account,” she said.
The free-standing birthing center is owned and operated by the Amish community and grants privileges to two direct-entry midwives and six area doctors.
Evans said he made short work of his autobiography, writing it out longhand in a few months.
He credits his daughter, Christina Evans, with typing it and editing it for publication.
“She would clean up my grammar and spelling,” he said, adding she insisted he take out names of people he talked about to avoid any legal issues.
“I don’t think I could have done this book without her,” Evans said.
He enjoyed his many years as a doctor and his autobiography paints a colorful history of all those people he treated and worked with, but he would like to still be pursuing a career he loved.
“I don’t know why I retired,” he said.
