Washington County Enterprise-Leader
DR. HALL: Perseverance Key To Gaining Footing In Medicine
founded Fayetteville Diagnostic Center.)
“She told me, ‘ Dr. Hall saved my husband’s life and I want you to thank him for me.’ She then asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up and I thought that sounded like a good thing. I’ve pretty much stuck with that.”
When Hall was about 12 years old, his father was in a bad accident and in a coma for a month. His mom was gone to stay with his dad and a relative was taking care of him.
“It was a bad day and I did a lot of soul searching,” Hall said.
Hall said he promised God he would be a doctor if God saved his dad and brought him home.
Several years later at age 17, Hall said he was attending a military school and got to the point that he was “kinda depressed” and needed to get away. He remembers lying on the grass. It was black at night and the wind was swirling all around him.
“I started talking to God telling him you know this will require a huge effort to become a doctor and I don’t want to renege on my agreement I made when I was 12.”
Hall said he asked God for a sign so he would know he was still on the right path.
“The sky opened up in a perfect circle and the stars were amazing. I couldn’t not say that wasn’t a sign.”
Grew Up On Family Farm
Hall grew up in the Viney Grove area on the family farm. Even as a teenager, he said he knew he wanted to practice medicine in Prairie Grove or Lincoln because the area had a manpower healthcare shortage.
He said he also chose medicine because he always wanted to be a cowboy.
“It was one field with minimum regulations then. You could go out and help people and improvise, and I did that. As regulations have tightened, I don’t think anyone could be a cowboy anymore.”
Hall graduated from Hendrix College with a major in biology and minor in religion and philosophy. He attended the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock and did his residency in Utah.
He admits he was somewhat of a “rapscallion” growing up and wasn’t the best of students. He was diagnosed with dyslexia and had to learn to deal with that.
It took him four years to get into medical school because he was not able to finish the test. Finally, persevering, he said he took a course where he spent time just taking practice tests.
He sat for the medical college admission test again and realized the questions and answers were the same as the ones on his practice tests.
“I rejoiced,” Hall said. “It was the first time I ever finished the test and I got in that year.”
Opening Lincoln Clinic
Following residency, Hall spent time as a doctor in Prairie Grove and in Lincoln. He was working full-time in a clinic located in a house trailer off Lincoln Square when he decided to purchase the former Lincoln Mercantile building on the square and open his own doctor’s office.
“My intent was to practice in a little town that was far enough from a big center so all my services would be needed,” Hall said.
With the Lincoln clinic about 30 miles from the nearest hospital, Hall said his office has taken care of a little bit of everything over the years.
He’s had people come in with chainsaw wounds, construction accidents, heart attacks and seizures.
“We’ll stabilize them before we transfer them to the hospital,” he said.
One of his most remarkable cases involved a man visiting his uncle from Croatia.
The man was mowing the yard for his uncle before he left to go home. He had stuck his foot under the mower to hold it in place and his foot got caught in the blades and was terribly mangled.
Hall said he tried to talk the man into going to the hospital, but he wouldn’t.
“So I decided I probably needed to do something.
I pulled out my books on the anatomy of the foot and pretty much put the foot back together.”
Afterward, they asked him what they owed. They didn’t have insurance.
“I asked him, ‘Are you a Christian?’ His eyes widened. In his country, people did not ask that question, he told me. He told me he was a Christian. I said you can thank me by doing something for someone else.”
Hall added, “I also told him he needed to go to the emergency room to get it checked out. I’m sure he didn’t do that.”
The most amazing part about the story, Hall said, is that the man returned three years later bearing beautiful gifts created by artists in his community.
“The best gift was that he walked without a limp.”
Those are examples of cases that go on in his clinic.
His patients didn’t just come from the Lincoln area. He had patients from Elkins, Huntsville, Rogers, Evansville, Fort Smith, and Stilwell, Okla.
He doesn’t know why some drove so far to see him when there are doctors a lot closer. He said he didn’t advertise his practice so he figures it had to be word of mouth.
“I had the best patients. They were wonderful. Kind. Considerate. I’ll bet of my patients, 90% were the salt of the earth. That’s a plus. They were gracious people. They still are.”
By the time he retired, he said he was seeing the fifth generation of some of his first patients. Dr. Jennifer Cheatham of Lincoln is replacing him at the clinic.
“I took care of her great-grandmother.”
Changes over the years include the use of electronic medical records and the practice by hospitals to use their own physicians, called hospitalists, to care for patients, not family doctors.
He’s not too sure about electronic medical records but said hospitalists have made being a family doctor easier.
Before if one of his patients came into the emergency room in the middle of the night, Hall said he would go to the emergency room.
He would hold his stethoscope out the window so police officers would know why he was speeding.
His clinic was one of the last holdouts to handing over its patients to the hospitalists.
When he realized hospitalists were being called to see his patients in the middle of the night, he said he decided to fall in line with other clinics and let the hospitalists take care of everything.
His days used to start with making hospital rounds at 5 a.m. and then going into the office to see patients about 9:30 a.m.
After letting hospitals take care of his patients, his days still started early, around 5:30 a.m., but he started his day on the computer preparing for the patients he would see.
Ready To Retire
Hall is 69 and said he wanted to retire when he was 60 or 62 years of age but couldn’t find anyone to take over the clinic. Now, larger companies can offer bonuses and incentives to doctors and Hall said small clinics cannot afford such packages.
He began negotiating with Washington Regional and the hospital offered Cheatham their sign- on package.
He’s been working two days a week since September to ease Cheatham into the office and help his patients transition to a new doctor.
Hall has some plans for retirement. He has a small farm with his brother with 40 cows. He likes to garden, fish and has a woodworking shop.
He and his wife, Cathy, have three grown children and five grandchildren.