Post-retirement Reflections.

Harold L. Brodell, M.D.

Harold L. Brodell received his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at North Carolina Memorial Hospital, Chapel Hill, and University Hospitals of Cleveland. Following Fellowships in Cardiology and Neurology at University Hospitals and a tour of duty in the U.S. Army Medical Service, he practiced Internal Medicine for thirty years in Warren, Ohio. While in private practice, he served as Chief of Staff at Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and received several professional awards including physician recognition awards from the A.M.A. Both of his sons and a daughter-in-law are practicing physicians in Warren. He and his wife currently live in retirement in Florida.

I have been asked by my favorite classmates to write a short piece about my feelings regarding medical practice at the present time. I had the good fortune to have had an intensive internal medicine practice for thirty years in Warren, Ohio, after excellent training at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill and a residency at University Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio. I served for two years as Assistant Chief of Medicine, USAH, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

I have two sons and a daughter-in-law in very successful and active medical practice in Warren, Ohio, and a daughter who assists them as an office manager. We also have a grand-daughter in her second year of medical school at the U of R School of Medicine and Dentistry. Son, Bob, was just elected to the American Dermatological Society and has published many articles.

Since retirement 20 years ago, we have been fortunate to have had excellent medical attention from a fine Internist-Cardiologist who graduated from Harvard Medical School. Keeping up with medical advances has not been possible but I do understand the basics and rationale of current therapy. We treat our physician and all consultants with great respect, knowing how much they had to learn in order to reach their present positions.

The politics of medicine is beyond my grasp, but I must say my practice before government regulation was very enjoyable and I never expected that governmental involvement could make it any better. Now, having become a patient instead of a physician, I have to admit that it is better from the patient's standpoint: we have had free choice of physician for our primary care and this has been of exemplary quality; the specialists we required were also top-notch and saw us promptly; and under our insurance, physicians’ services were available at no cost to us and medications were reasonably priced.