THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510060246
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
In 1976, David West was a 16-year-old volunteer washing urine specimen bottles in the lab at Chesapeake General Hospital. He was working at the hospital because he was thinking about becoming a doctor.
He did. He is. Dr. David West, a specialist in internal medicine, has just become president of the medical staff at Chesapeake General. That makes him the second generation of Wests-in-charge at the hospital. His father Herman set up the physical therapy department when the hospital opened in 1976. He supervised it until his semi-retirement in 1990.
Herman found his physical therapy career by accident. Literally. He was a hotshot center-fielder for an Army team in Georgia in 1943, and a lot of people thought he might make it to the major league. But he fell one day in the gym and turned his shoulder into anatomical chop suey. Though the therapists who treated him couldn't restore the shoulder to major league strength, they impressed him so much that he became a therapist himself.
``Semi-retired'' means that he keeps his therapist's license current. And he's still going to Great Bridge High football games as he has since 1974 to help the players deal with the bumps, bangs and bruises of the game.
However, you don't have to be a football player to get the benefit of some good Westian advice. He has words of wisdom for the people who sit on their duffs all week and then try to do Superman imitations on the athletic field or in the yard all weekend.
``First loosen up and get flexible,'' he says. ``Rest when you get tired.'' As for the ``no pain, no gain'' approach that some workout enthusiasts endorse, Herman says no. Pain, he says, is how your body tells you to slow down. Pay attention.
Then there's that favorite target of muscle misery, the human back. Do your back a favor, Herman says. When you're lifting something, bend your knees and lift with your legs.
Even if Herman never made it to the major leagues, he spent a lot of evenings playing on slow-pitch softball teams. In fact, he and his son David, a varsity baseball player at Great Bridge High School, were both on the hospital slow-pitch team at one time. ``Worst softball team ever,'' David said. He did not suggest getting a second opinion.
David's first exposure to the world of medicine came when he was a 10th grader and his dad took him along to a sports medicine clinic at Old Dominion University.
Both Wests laugh as they recall what David decided about the situation at the clinic. He observed that his dad helped people but that the surgeon told everyone what to do.
So up until medical school, David was planning to be an orthopedic surgeon. Then he discovered internal medicine and switched his sights. ``Internal medicine deals with the whole body, the whole person,'' he says. ``That's rewarding.''
He did his internship and residency at a hospital in Jackson, Miss. Ask him if it was as tough a drill as it's reputed to be and he says it was. ``Difficult physically and emotionally, but the stress kept you awake and alert.'' Still, he wishes there were what he called a ``more humane'' training process for young doctors. More rest time particularly. On the other hand, he must had some time away from the medical hassle. He met and married his wife Katherine who was a nurse at the hospital.
In 1988, he joined his current practice, Chesapeake Internists, and that has brought him sort of full cycle. He remembers when Chesapeake General Hospital was nothing more than an office trailer in the woods on Battlefield Boulevard. He remembers working on bake sales and car washes to help raise money for the hospital. He remembers being one of its first volunteers. ``I got more responsibility in the lab, too,'' he says with tongue-in-cheek pride. ``They let me wash other kinds of bottles as well as urine bottles.''
Charting the growth of Chesapeake General, David says, ``It started as a small rural hospital with limited capability. Now it's a state-of-the-art facility with broad range and capability.''
As medical staff president, it's his job to help keep the staff running smoothly and to oversee the process that ensures staff members have proper credentials.
But he's very much aware of the problematic state of medicine these days. ``There has been a dramatic improvement in our ability to diagnose and treat illnesses and injuries,'' he says, ``but economic pressure from insurers is becoming more of a factor.
Maintaining high quality is one of the challenges for physicians and the health care industry as a whole.
``As physicians, we're not going to let insurers take quality out of our hands.'' by CNB