Dr. Long Still Practicing After 50 Years for ‘Greatest Patients in the World’

September 9, 2006

By PHYLISS BOATWRIGHT
C-T Staff Writer

After 50 years in practice, Dr. Thomas Long Sr. is still passionate about his work.

Photo author Ken Martin / C-T

Dr. Thomas Long Sr. and his wife, Betty, began a medical practice in Roxboro in July of 1956. Betty Long retired from medicine years ago to raise the couple's four sons two of whom followed in their father's footsteps. But Thomas Long Sr. continues to practice, after 50 years, because, he says, 'I have the greatest patients in the world.'

The Roxboro internist, when talking about medicine, leans forward in his chair, his face lights up, his voice and mannerisms are animated. He speaks with clarity, authority and obvious enthusiasm while explaining how the cardiovascular system works.

Discussing the difference between good and bad cholesterol, Long may as well be telling how he discovered the Holy Grail. It is more than apparent that he loves his life’s work.

When asked why he is still practicing medicine, making house calls and rising at the crack of dawn to visit patients in the hospital – at age 80 – this son of a Roxboro electrician states simply, "Because I like my patients. I have the greatest patients in the world. And," he adds, "I love teaching."

Long says he tries to educate his patients about their bodies and their symptoms. He says that when he talks with patients, he also tries to get to know them as people, not just as another appointment.

Because he also enjoys teaching new doctors, he says, he works with Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, allowing medical students to gain experience in the office he shares with two of his sons, Dr. Stephen Long and Dr. Thomas Long Jr., along with Dr. Jeff Kafer.

Long says he tries to instill in the new physicians a need to get to know their patients. He also teaches them how to do "a good physical history so you have an idea what the diagnosis is before you do x-rays" or other tests, he says.

And, Long admits, while he’s teaching these medical students, he’s also learning himself.

"It’s a two-way exchange of information," Long said last week in his home, talking with The Courier-Times.

"You never stop learning," he explained. "If you stop learning, you go backwards because you can never stand still."

Long and his wife, Betty, whom he refers to as "Hubb," because of her maiden name, Hubbard, went back in time last week to tell how they came to practice medicine in Roxboro in July 1956.

The young medical student left college after a year, to join the Navy during World War II. He served for two years, first as a corpsman at Treasure Island in San Fransisco. He then went to Bethesda Naval Hospital as part of a group that would work on Guadalcanal on a new program to combat malaria among soldiers.

When he first began the work, Long recalls, 40 percent of soldiers were "down" due to the mosquito-borne illness. After the mosquito control program was initiated, the percentage of those affected was reduced to 10. Long is still proud of the part he played in keeping soldiers healthy and able to defend the U.S. and its allies.

After his time in the Navy, Long returned to Wake Forest University, where he met his future wife.

Long explains he was in chemistry class one day when a nice looking young lady came up to him and asked if he had any chewing gum.

"I’ve never chewed gum," Long says with a twinkle in his eye, but because he had just visited his mother, who liked chewing gum, he happened to have a pack on him.

Betty Long then confesses, with a chuckle, that she didn’t chew gum either, but, "It was one way to get things going."

Betty, who at the time was training as a lab technician, would go on to New York to work with Dr. Georgios Papanikolaou, who invented what is today known as the Pap smear to detect cervical cancer in women. Meanwhile, her future husband was finishing medical school and a residency in Philadelphia and at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem.

The two stayed in touch, and that first, fortuitous stick of gum eventually led to a long and happy marriage, the birth of four sons, and a half-century, distinguished career.

When the Longs first returned to Tom’s hometown, the doctor and his wife set up practice in the dining room of their Lamar Street home. Betty served as a nurse while the practice was getting on its feet.

After the Longs’ first child, Mike, was born, Betty would call Tom’s mother in to baby sit while Betty helped out with patients.

At first, the Longs recall, it was tough going, with only an occasional patient showing up at their door.

Tom Long remembers his very first patient. Katherine Clayton came to him with a rash, "itching all over, and asked if I could possibly do something."

He treated Clayton 50 years ago, and tomorrow, when a reception is held at Homestead Festival House to honor Long’s years in practice, he hopes to see that first patient again.

During the early days, the Longs often sat around the dining room/medical office and drank tea, according to Betty Long. After about six months of seeing few patients, Tom Long told the hospital that he would do the then-required pre-marital physicals to free up time for the hospital and more established doctors. After all, he had a lab technician in the house.

After the referrals for physicals began, the Longs’ practice grew, so much so that by Jan. 1, 1957, they moved into a real office, where Thomas Long would practice until 1996, at which time the practice moved to the present location of Roxboro Medical Associates on Doctors Court.

Early in their practice, the Longs also picked up patients because theirs was the only doctor’s office open on Wednesday afternoons. Being the new kid on the block, Dr. Long recalls, he was the only physician in town who wasn’t on the golf course on Wednesdays, "So I was automatically elected to work."

But he never seemed to mind, his wife points out.

"It energizes him when he finds something early," she says, referring to his diagnoses of patients.

Long relates that he became a doctor as a result of his maternal uncle, who was an Oxford physician.

"I remember, when I got sick," Long recollects, "Mama would call him."

His uncle took out Long’s ruptured appendix and his tonsils, instilling in the young man a respect for the medical profession.

During his five decades as a doctor, Long has seen many changes. In fact, he observes, medicine "is completely changed now."

He says he advises young physicians that they should be prepared to be a counselor as well as a doctor.

"That is very important," he cautions, "people will trust you" if they feel comfortable enough to discuss personal matters. "To practice medicine," he insists, "you need to know your patients."

He is familiar with most of his patients’ family, business, social and personal lives, he said, which allows him to "know better how to keep them healthy."

Doctors no longer make house calls, he says, as he often did, driving "out in the country," as Betty Long puts it, to see sick patients who couldn’t get to town.

She remembers receiving phone calls and asking patients where they lived. The answer was often something like, "Go down past the old store and turn at the big oak tree." Thankfully, she says, given that her husband was a native Personian, he often knew which old store and oak tree to look for.

Long still makes a house call now and then, he acknowledges, for those patients who would suffer more harm than good by getting up, into a vehicle and traveling to his office.

When asked about funny recollections concerning his practice, Long remembers one patient who came to see him because of swelling, blotches and pain in her legs. She had her five-year-old granddaughter with her in the examining room. After Long diagnosed the woman’s condition as thrombophlebitis, he said the child looked and looked at her grandmother before asking, very seriously, "Grandma, where are those fleas? I don’t see them."

Over the years, patients have given Thomas Long Sr. many good memories. He also recalls working with Person High School juniors and seniors interested in medicine. He also performed exams on PHS athletes for years, as well as Boy Scout physicals.

Those things, says Long, are ways to give back to a community that has given him so much.

Long has chaired the March of Dimes campaign in Person County and given his time to help fight cancer.

But the community involvement Long is most proud of is his 50 years of membership in the Roxboro Rotary Club. When he first came back to Roxboro, he notes, his father told him he should join. The young doctor, however, said, "I don’t have the money to pay dues."

His father loaned him the first dues, and Long now has a 50-year perfect attendance record at Rotary meetings. But he also served as District governor of the North Carolina Rotary in the mid-1970s, and visited 48 clubs from Roxboro to the coast.

Long is proud of the Rotary’s work to provide scholarships to students and its student exchange program.

He is also proud to be an Eagle Scout – twice over – as well as the fact that all four of his sons, doctors Steve and Tom Jr., pharmacist Mike, and minister Mark, are Eagle Scouts as well.

Long has also served on the board of trustees of Person Memorial Hospital, and, since 1962, has been on the board of North Carolina Baptist Hospital, where he served as chair during the 1970s.

Long was also instrumental in getting specialists to practice in Roxboro. He played a role getting an intensive care unit at Person Memorial.

Having read "several thousand" EKGs during his practice, Long has a special interest in cardiology. For the past 19 yeas, Long has traveled to a medical conference in New York to remain informed of the latest innovations in the field.

Is Dr. Thomas Long Sr. even considering the idea of retirement, after such a long and busy career? In a word – no.

He loves serving his community and his patients, as well as constantly learning new things, and he says he has no intentions of giving up any of the above.

Reprinted with permission from
The Courier=Times Online