THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508230173
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PAM STARR, Staff Writer
LENGTH: Long : 179 lines
WHEN DR. ANDREW DICKINSON operated on heart patients 30 years ago at the old Virginia Beach Hospital, a head nurse administered the anesthesia (open drop ether) and orderlies took turns swatting flies.
That was common practice at the three-story building, located on Arctic Avenue and 25th Street. Windows and doors had to be opened for ventilation because the building was not equipped with air conditioning, and the first floor flooded when it rained. Nurses performed just about every duty, from assisting in the operating room to scrubbing floors.
And doctors didn't have the advantages of the medical technology that is taken for granted today. Practicing medicine was, in a way, crude. Dickinson, a cardiologist, remembers the frustration he felt whenever a heart attack victim came to the hospital.
``People would come in with heart attacks and you'd just watch them die,'' said Dickinson, 64. ``Bypass surgery didn't come till the late '60s and we had no medicines, no stress tests. We didn't know anything about cholesterol.''
The medical field, and the old hospital, has taken a giant leap since 1965.
No specialists or dietitians or community health educators were on staff. Patients were served ``delicious'' high-fat, salty food, said Dickinson, cooked by old Princess Anne County women who knew how to fry flounder and prepare a good bucket of greens and biscuits.
Doctors still made house calls. Health insurance was rarely used (Who needed it when the cost of delivering a baby was $35?), and new moms stayed in the hospital an average of seven days after delivery. The term ``malpractice suit'' hadn't even been coined yet.
It's hard to imagine the 274-bed acute-care Virginia Beach General Hospital as a small, rural, 25-bed medical center owned by three local doctors. But that's what it was for 15 years, until the old hospital moved to its present site on First Colonial Road in the summer of 1965.
The change thrust the hospital into the forefront of the medical technological revolution. Virginia Beach General Hospital is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and Dickinson still can't get over all of the changes that have occurred since 1965.
``I remain in awe of how medicine has changed,'' said Dickinson. ``Never in my wildest dreams had I thought that those advances would happen in my lifetime.''
Eight volunteer rescue squads transferred 34 patients from the old building to the new hospital on July 12, 1965. Other patients drove themselves. Hospital volunteers, community members and reporters lined the streets that morning, waiting for the first patient to be transported.
Dr. John Mapp recalls that moving day was almost like a parade.
``It was an exciting day,'' said Mapp, a family practice physician who is also a staff physician at the hospital. ``Before we moved, we made more house calls and rode down the street to Norfolk General more. Now we were in a hospital with the latest in technology and equipment.''
The new hospital did not come about without controversy, however. The late John Aragona had platted land in his Princess Anne Plaza neighborhood for a 100-bed hospital, to sit on the aptly named Hospital Road. It was to be called Princess Anne County Memorial Hospital.
But Aragona's group butted heads with the doctors from General Hospital of Virginia Beach (as it was known then), who wanted to expand the old hospital at its same site. Both groups were in competition for federal funding, too, but were told that only one site would receive the money.
Some of the General Hospital's doctors realized that expanding the hospital on limited land would be ``totally inadequate for what the future would hold,'' recalled Dickinson.
``Could you imagine what life would have been like if we were located on 25th Street?'' he asked. ``It would have amounted to nothing.''
The Levi Old family turned the outcome in favor of the General Hospital group by donating 18 acres of farmland in Hilltop. Dickinson said that both groups came together one night at a meeting, and after several hours the General Hospital group prevailed. But he wonders what the hospital would have been like in the other location.
``It might have been better if located in Princess Anne Plaza because it's more central and convenient to a lot of people,'' said Dickinson. ``I'm sure it would have been three or four times bigger than it is now.''
Amazing advances in medicine have arrived in every field since those early days. Heart attack patients in 1965 were kept in the hospital a minimum of three weeks and couldn't feed themselves. At home, they weren't allowed to move around for several more weeks. Now, according to Dickinson, patients go directly from the emergency room to the Cardiac Catheterization Lab, where doctors open arteries on the spot with a balloon.
``Patients can go home in four days and are back to work in three to four weeks,'' marveled Dickinson. ``The death rate for heart attack patients used to be 20 percent. Now it's down to 6 percent.
``We're also seeing a change in how medicine is managed and delivered,'' he added. ``That's going to be as revolutionary as anything else.''
In the tiny 400-square-foot pathology lab, Dr. John Krueger and technician Pete Butsavage used to section tissue samples and place them on a custom-built, stainless steel tissue processor. Doctors at DePaul Hospital had designed the piece of equipment, recalled Krueger. Tissue samples would travel by the men on a conveyor belt at a slow rate of speed.
``The belt was like what you see in a grocery store, and to speed that up you had to hand-crank it,'' Krueger said. ``We used it for about two years. It was replaced with people.''
When the pathology department moved to the new hospital, Krueger could hardly believe his luck. They were given 10 rooms equal to about 4,000 square feet in which to practice pathology. Departmental employees jumped from three in 1965 to 105 in 1995.
``Once we got here, no two days were the same,'' said Butsavage. ``Patients were everywhere, we were filled to capacity. It was a big difference.''
One of the biggest changes occurred in labor and delivery. Delivering babies in the 1960s was not the family affair it is today. Mary Diggs, a practical nurse, started her 30-year career in the post-partum and labor and delivery units at the old hospital. She remembers when mothers gave birth with just the medical staff present, and fathers paced the waiting room floor.
``It wasn't highly recommended for fathers to be there,'' said Diggs, who works the night shift. ``Now they let them cut the cord. That would never have happened back then.''
In the last 30 years the hospital has added a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, The Birthing Center, a diabetes treatment center, a radiation/oncology department, radiologic services, an expanded emergency center, the Open Heart Surgery Program, orthopedic specialties, neurosurgery and a Sleep Lab.
The majority of patients who use the hospital reside at the Oceanfront and outlying areas, and still look at Virginia Beach General as a community hospital, said former patient Dana Congdon.
``You see the same people in every department - employees stick around,'' said Congdon, who was born at the old hospital and delivered her three children at the new one. ``I am so impressed with the people at Virginia Beach General. It started as a community hospital and the tradition has truly lived on.'' ILLUSTRATION: ON THE COVER
The color staff photo of Virginia Beach General Hospital today was
taken by Charlie Meads. The inset, of the original hospital, is a
file photo.
Photos
AT RIGHT: Heart attack patients in 1965 were kept in the hospital a
minimum of three weeks and couldn't feed themselves. At home, they
weren't allowed to move around for several more weeks. Now,
according to Dr. W. Andrew Dickinson, patients go directly from the
emergency room to the Cardiac Catheterization Lab, where doctors
open arteries on the spot with a balloon. ``Patients can go home in
four days and are back to work in three to four weeks,'' marveled
Dickinson.
BELOW: Dr. John J. Krueger says he could hardly believe his luck
when the pathology department moved to the new hospital. They were
given 10 rooms equal to about 4,000 square feet in which to practice
pathology. At the old hospital, he worked in a tiny, 400-square-foot
lab.
General practice physician Dr. John A. Mapp, at left, who is on the
staff at Virginia Beach General, also worked at the old hospital on
25th Street. ``Before we moved, we made more house calls and rode
down the street to Norfolk General more,'' he recalls, remembering
the excitement of moving day. ``Now we were in a hospital with the
latest in technology and equipment.''
Photo
``I am so totally impressed with the people at Virginia Beach
General. It started as a community hospital and the tradition has
truly lived on.''
- former patient Dana Congdon
Graphic
Virginia Beach General: Then and Now
[stats for years 1965 and 1995]
Admissions
Beds
Babies delivered
Employees
Medical Staff
Payroll
Volunteers
For copy of graphic, see microfilm.
by CNB