ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, June 25, 1996                 TAG: 9606250042
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: Associated Press 

A FULL HEART GOES BACK TO THE BASICS

When Dr. David Johnson attended a seminar on managing medicine as a business and found many young doctors excited about what they were learning, he knew it was time for a change.

So, after 19 years at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughter, where he helped establish the pediatric heart-transplant program, the cardiologist is headed to Burnsville, N.C., for a new life as a country doctor.

Johnson, 55, will join a one-person pediatric practice housed in an old general store. Instead of keeping children alive before and after heart transplants, he will be treating colds and ear infections.

``He's one of the reasons we've had the success we've had,'' said cardiac surgeon Glenn Barnhart, who performs many of the hospital's heart transplants.

Johnson said became a pediatrician because he liked children, and he became a cardiologist because the logic of the speciality - with its emphasis on hydraulics and physics - intrigued him.

The seminar that prompted him to change course came shortly after he became the hospital's medical director two years ago. The emphasis on helping the medical staff improve the way it practiced medicine in today's managed-care environment made him realize how much he missed working with patients and their families.

``What I wanted to do was go on a quest to find myself in the only way I knew how to do well - in the service of others,'' he said.

Colleagues and patients alike say he will be missed.

``I don't even have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to talk about him,'' said Nancy Haga of Portsmouth, whose 12-year-old daughter is a lifelong patient of Johnson's.

Cardiology nurse coordinator Susan Alia credits Johnson with teaching her that there was more to surgical nursing than just ministering to the patient. Caring for the family, he showed her through his actions, was just as important.

``Not only does he become your physician, he becomes your friend,'' she said. ``He doesn't want families to feel there's anything ... to fear that he doesn't fear for them.''

LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Dr. David Johnson is leaving the pediatric 
          heart-transplant program he helped create for a job as a country 
          doctor.