Oral History Program G. Strandford Rees Interviewed by Peggy Hill 8 May 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah G. Strandford Rees Interviewed by Peggy Hill 8 May 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Rees, G. Strandford, an oral history by Peggy Hill, 8 May 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with G. Strandford Rees. The interview was conducted on May 8, 1971, by Peggy Hill, in Gunnison, Utah. Rees discusses his thoughts and feelings on the practice of medicine. PH: How do you feel that the image of the rural doctor has changed since you began practicing? GR: I really don't think that the image of the country doctor really has changed very much since I've been practicing. We go in and take care of patients just about the same as we always did. We don't make as many house calls now by a long ways as we did then, because for two reasons: 1. We have hospitals that are real handy that we put patients in when they are too sick to come to the office so as to get a better study and find out what is wrong with them, and they get a whole lot better care when they come to the office here. You go out to the house you can't go in and perform very many tests on them but if they come into the office you can go ahead and perform your analysis, white count and given them a much better checkup. PH: How do you feel that the role of the city doctor is different from the rural doctor? GR: They have a limited number of general practitioners in the city. Of course the role of the specialist is somewhat different from that of the general practitioner. The specialists may just confine himself to say, to the sick babies that are sent in to them from their own practice or from outlying areas. The orthopedic surgeon will take care of bones that are broken, that either come directly to him or are referred to him from other doctors because they are his specialty. However, in the city they have a lot of general men do about the same thing as they do in the country. Although there isn't any question about it you are getting a very, very few general practitioners, that are coming out now. We are just recently throughout the United States, they are inaugurating a general practice department in the medical schools. We have just started one here in the University of Utah. Maybe as time goes on we are going to get more general practitioners, but right now we certainly have a girth of them. Incidentally, one reason for having fewer general practitioners in the country 1 more doctors in the city and those that are in the city are specialists is because these young doctors marry wives, marry girls and these girls want to live in the city. They don't want to live in the country. That's one reason why fewer of them practice in the country. PH: What do you feel can be done about this problem? GR: This is a real good question. There are an awful lot of people thinking about it. I know that in our area through here in this part of the state, when I first came out we had quite a few doctors, as a matter of fact when I came out to Gunnison I talked to the doctor that was here and he discouraged me from locating here, then I walked up to see the banker and he discouraged me. It Seemed like they had all the medical care they needed here. Right now we'd give our eye tooth for another doctor to come in here with Dr. Stewart and myself in this particular area. PH: Why didn't they want more doctors then, wasn't their need as great, or was it a different type of need? GR: Right now there is a greater demand for medical services than there was when I came out. More people are using doctors than used them then. It isn't so much that we have more people in the country then because as a matter of fact we have fewer. It is just that right now more people are seeking medical attention, and as the older doctors in the country grow old, and retire, move out or die. We just don't have the younger doctors to replace them. The answer to this thing is really rough. Like I say they are working on it. They are trying to get general practice divisions in the medical schools and they have one here in Utah. I have my own ideas about this and I think that eventually we're going to come to it. First off we need more doctors. The medical schools are increasing the number of students they are taking in and eventually we are going to get more doctors. I don't think we are ever going to get as many as we should have, but we are going to get more doctors. In country areas at intervals of about fifty miles I think there will be medical centers for instance, in this particular area I think there will probably be a medical center at Mb. Pleasant. There will certainly be one here in Gunnison with this new fine, efficient, half million dollar hospital that is here. There will certainly be one in 2 Richfield. In these particular areas you will have two, three, maybe even four doctors. Then the people from the outlying areas and outlying counties will come in and be taken care of here. As a matter of fact in the city it takes a considerable length of time to go several miles in the city, and really you don't spend that much more time on the road in the city getting to a doctor than they do in the country even though there are a great many more miles. So I think that eventually that is going to be the answer. We will expect to do all the work, medical work, that there is to be done in the country. There are specialists, the specialists will be in the medical schools and in the larger centers. These patients will filter through the centers and be sent in to these doctors and specialists in the larger centers. PH: How do you feel that the attitudes and expectations of the people to you as a doctor have changed? GR: Really I don't think this has changed too much. When I came out the people expected the doctor to do all he could do and to use the knowledge that he had at hand to help them. That is exactly what they are expecting how. They do not think that the image of the doctor has gone down considerably in the past decade or so, but 1 am not at all sure about that. Now there is some talk about getting some help for the country doctor, in a medical assistant program. Like take some of the boys that have been in the service that have had training taking care of the sick and the wounded in the hospitals and maybe they can come out in the country and help the country doctor out. I think that in a few instances maybe this might work out. By and large I don't think it is going to be the answer to anything. You take in most of the offices the country doctor will have maybe a couple of girls to help him. These girls will be well trained. They can give shots, they can do white blood counts and things like that, and almost all of them have a hospital nearby where they have trained nurses and help there. And about putting these men out where they have an area there they have an area where they don't have any doctors, these people are going to have to make decisions, that are really difficult and I think that in some cases their going to call for a whole lot more knowledge and experience than they can have. So I really don't believe this is the answer to very much. I think the only answer first, let us 3 get more doctors and second let's have some kind of transportation where we can get these people into the medical centers. PH: Could you talk about how your practice was when you first came to Gunnison and how it has changed? GR: You want me to talk a little bit about how it was when I came here to this valley, in about 1932, and how things have changed. Well, when I first came here I had my office above a bank and we had to walk up about thirty steps to get to it. I'd go up there and put my feet on my desk and sit there most of the day. This was in 1932 when we were in the middle of a depression, I get a few calls. I never had enough money to even buy gasoline, sometimes I would go to the service station, I'd tell the service station man I had to have a dollar's worth of gas, then I would go out and make the call. Before I left I would tell the people that I absolutely had to have at least a dollar so I could pay for my gas to get to make the call. One winter we had a particularly bad winter here in Gunnison and I didn't have enough money to buy any coal and in those days at least, I couldn't get any coal on a bill. We lived in a house, a little wooden house, and there was an old big tree, dead tree, it was about 30 or 40 feet long and about a foot and a half in diameter. And I would go out in the morning with an ax and I'd work on that, cutting enough wood to keep the stove going all day. That was about 1932 to 1933. I don't believe I made over 150 dollars a month my first year in genital practice. I certainly didn't see very many patients a day. I'd charge about two dollars an office call. The babies I delivered, I delivered in the home and' charged twenty five dollars for. Certainly that is a far cry from today where we have fairly modern offices and a good hospital right by. And also it is certainly different from the number of patients we see. Most of the doctors in country practice, general practice, will see from forty to ninety patients a day and believe me your dragging your feet by the time the day is over. 4