2008 Country Doctor of the Year Devotes 50 Years to Small Texas Town
Dr. David Watson Still Makes House Calls, Accepts Produce as Payment
 When Dr. David Watson began practicing family medicine in Yoakum, Texas in 1958 he charged patients $3 for an office visit and $5 for a house call. He would also accept a pie, the haunch of a deer, a bushel of pecans or other payment in kind for his services.
A lot has changed since then, but in many ways, the 2008 Country Doctor of the Year® has not. Dr. Watson still makes house calls, still accepts payment in kind, and still is the lynchpin of medical care in Yoakum, as he has been for five decades.
Presented by Staff Care, the largest physician staffing firm in the United States, the Country Doctor of the Year® Award recognizes the spirit, skill and dedication of America’s rural medical practitioners. Staff Care has presented the award to exemplary primary care physicians practicing in rural communities of 20,000 or less since 1992.
According to Staff Care president Tim Boes, Dr. Watson personifies the unique role that country doctors play in providing not only medical care but stability and economic viability for the small towns they serve. The son of a Methodist preacher, Dr. Watson arrived in Yoakum, a south Texas town of about 6,000, immediately out of medical training. Soon he began the multifarious tasks of a country doctor: family physician, surgeon, obstetrician and (unofficial) psychiatrist. With his partner of 50 years, Dr. A.E. Mgebroff (now deceased), Dr. Watson delivered babies, removed fish hooks, diagnosed heart failure, made midnight trips to the emergency room, attended football games with his medical bag, served as medical director of the local nursing home, and was a main stay in community affairs – all while raising four children with his wife, Bernice.
In his spare time, Dr. Watson also served as attending physician at the Bluebonnet Youth Ranch for abused and dependent children in Yoakum, seeing pediatric patients without charging a fee. The 78-year-old Dr. Watson continues to provide all these services, except obstetrics, seeing 20 to 30 patients a day in his office, rounding on patients in the hospital and the nursing home, and mixing in the occasional house call. Little wonder, notes Boes, that Yoakum Community Hospital has named a wing in Dr. Watson’s honor.
“Country doctors like Dr. Watson are the glue that keeps small towns together,” Boes says. “They are vital to patient care, and by keeping local hospitals open they also help ensure the economic viability and sometimes the very survival of their communities. Country doctors are a resource rural America literally cannot afford to do without.”
As the 2008 Country Doctor of the Year®, Dr. Watson will be able to enjoy two weeks off, as Staff Care will provide a temporary physician to fill in for him at no charge, a service valued at approximately $10,000. He also will receive the award’s signature plaque featuring a country doctor making his rounds on a horse and buggy, an engraved stethoscope, and a monogrammed lab coat.
About Staff Care
Staff Care is the largest temporary physician staffing firm in the United States and a division of AMN Healthcare.
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