Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992 TAG: 9201240148
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES HITE MEDICAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DOCTOR READY TO TRY NEIGHBORHOOD OFFICE
Sundiata El-Amin knows it will be tough. But he's ready to give it a try.As soon as he can make arrangements, the Washington, D.C., doctor wants to open a practice in Northwest Roanoke.
He's heard the warnings that other doctors in solo practice have tried and left.
"I explained it to him at length. I told him, `You ought to come in with another physician,' " says Dr. Melvin Law, who practiced in Northwest for nearly 40 years.
Law, who gave up a private practice in surgery and general medicine in 1978, says the burden of working alone simply overwhelmed him.
"You don't have anyone to give you relief," he says. "Your patients make you feel you are ignoring them. You get to the point of choking up with so much responsibility."
That isn't deterring El-Amin.
"This is the type of lifestyle I want to live," he says. "I want to be there for my patients."
El-Amin, 43, says he likes the variety of private practice. It's a lot like working the emergency room, he says, an area that he's found challenging in the past.
For the past three years, El-Amin has been in private practice in Washington. Most of his practice, he says, involves seeing patients in their homes. He says he doesn't have an office practice and doesn't have privileges at any of the area hospitals.
He says he learned about Roanoke from his wife, Zakiyyah, who spent some time here about five years ago. After their marriage a year ago, she told El-Amin that Roanoke would be a great place to start a practice and rear three children from a former marriage.
"We wanted a more peaceful environment," El-Amin says.
A friend of his wife told him about Law's old office on Lafayette Boulevard. El-Amin visited Law last week, and may rent the office to open a practice here.
El-Amin was born in Washington, attended Catholic schools there and graduated from D.C. Teachers College in 1970. After teaching, he decided to earn his medical degree. He graduated from Meharry Medical College in Tennessee in 1976 and did a four-year residency in internal medicine.
He converted to the Islam religion in 1981 and changed his name from Cephas Jackson. He was a staff physician at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lexington, Ky., from 1980 to 1983. He was in private practice in Lexington in 1983-84, then moved to Paintsville, Ky. He worked as an emergency-room physician at Newport News General Hospital in 1986-87 and was in private practice in Emporia in 1988-89 before moving to Washington.
El-Amin hopes he will be able to make arrangements with other doctors in town to take care of his patients while he's on vacation or out of town.
But Dr. J.B. Claytor, an obstetrician who practiced in Northwest for nearly 30 years, has serious doubts that anyone can make a go of a solo practice there now, even with coverage from other physicians.
"No one man could come in this area and survive. It's just too much to ask." The best solution, Claytor says, would be a group practice that has the support of the community and local hospitals.
"Part of the problem anyone will have to overcome here is that there have been several people start a practice and then fade away," Claytor says. "People may be gun shy. They don't want to change doctors all the time."
Memo: CORRECTION