Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 1, 1993 TAG: 9301010143
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: CHARLYNE H. McWILLIAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ACADEMY OF MEDICINE PRESCRIBING EDUCATION
William Rutherford considered two careers when he was young. One was a typical childhood dream, as a cowboy herding cattle on the open range. The other was more conservative, ministering to people in church.Even after he chose a medical career, Rutherford, a heart specialist affiliated with Salem's Lewis-Gale Clinic, realized medicine and ministry had more in common than many people might think.
"I work with people helping them through a crisis," he said, just like clergy.
Despite his other interests, Rutherford had early influences that led him to a medical career. His father sold radiology equipment for General Electric Co. After talking with some of those people and with some encouragement from his family, he decided to attend Hampden-Sydney College to prepare for a career in radiology.
While at school, he decided to become a general practitioner. And later he decided to specialize in cardiology, where he found a different way to minister to the human heart.
The Roanoke native didn't do any preaching as president of the Roanoke Valley Academy of Medicine, however, he rallied to close the gap of misunderstanding between the public and doctors.
"We've gradually become more involved in the community," he said. "It used to be a group that looked out for the interests of doctors."
Rutherford completes his yearlong term today.
One of the major changes Rutherford said he's seen is more interest in how the health-care system works and its increasing cost, which has modified the role of the academy to helping people understand both sides of the issue.
"As health-care reform comes, people will naturally gravitate to the academy" as a source of information about changes in the health-care industry, he said.
The organization of more than 400 area doctors has made more of an effort to understand and be understood by the public, he said.
In order to foster this understanding, the academy joined the Blue Ridge Regional Health Care Coalition, a group of organizations interested in harnessing health-care costs in the valley.
"We're trying to reach out," he said.
Mini-internships were sponsored by the academy this year for the first time to link citizens with doctors to dispell some of the myths about the profession. It gave a group of non-medical people - bankers to housewives - the opportunity to spend two days in local hospitals. The participants were able to see firsthand how doctors work with patients, support staff and paperwork.
Education is a key element in helping people understand what is going on in the health-care industry. And the Academy of Medicine's incoming president, Jack Ballenger, said education will be the organization's focus for 1993.
Ballenger is a Roanoke native, who has been a kidney specialist here for 12 years. He did some of his internal medicine training here after graduating from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.
There are two major aspects of Ballenger's thinking about education. The growing affiliation between local hospitals and the University of Virginia's School of Medicine provides a foundation, he said. The nearly 140 medical school graduates doing their residency at area hospitals get a practical education and also give veteran doctors the opportunity to teach their skills to a new generation, he said.
The alliance with UVa has helped the Roanoke Valley become a good place to practice, he said. It has led to growth in the types of medical specialists who settle here and that means fewer patients are transferred out of the area for care, he said.
The call for reform of America's health-care system in an attempt to control costs has made education about medical practices a priority for the profession, Ballenger said. Along with informing doctors about the likely changes, he said it will be important to educate legislators and the public.
"That education needs to be more on how to use our health-care system effectively and how the public can take responsibility for their own health," he said.
The push for reform will make 1993 crucial in health care in the valley and across the country. This will enhance the need for a strong medical group, he said.
"We physicians know the system best," he said, "and if we're going to have significant reform we're going to have to have some input."
Ballenger said about 90 percent of the nearly 600 doctors in the valley are members of the academy.
"They do it because they're concerned about the future of medicine," he said.