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Doc Johnston takes down his shingle
by Robb Fulcher
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Physician Douglas Johnston stands outside the Pier Ave. family practice office he will leave after 48 years, finally giving way to the HMO movement. Photo by Robb Fulcher |
When 77-year-old physician G. Douglas Johnston takes down the old-fashioned shingle from his Pier Avenue office Dec. 31, he will mark the end of an era when local family doctors delivered babies, performed minor surgeries and provided "cradle-to-grave" care.
His retirement closes a 48-year practice in Hermosa Beach, 40 of them at his current location on the north side of upper Pier.
"Medicine has changed in the last 10 years," said the sharp-eyed, white-haired Johnston, who bears a notable resemblance to the actor Richard Widmark.
"The HMOs have virtually taken over, they have about 80 percent of the population in Southern California. We have one of the heaviest HMO penetrations in the nation," he said.
"When I first started, we used to deliver the babies and take care of people all through their years. I think those days are over. Now it’s more compartmentalized. You have a baby doctor, a hospital doctor, a female physician who wants to do all the gynecological things and the yearly pap smears, a dermatologist," Johnston said.
Despite the dwindling number of patients for his practice, Johnston said the new way of doing things has its advantages.
"I hate to say it but the HMOs are probably more efficient, more cost-effective," he said. "There is less patient contact, but it is a more efficient way to deliver the care. There is probably a higher standard of care."
Patients’ lament
Johnston’s oldest patient, 101-year-old Therese Borgstrom, wasted no words in lamenting her doctor’s retirement.
"Isn’t that terrible," she said.
On Monday in Johnston’s homey, if somewhat tattered, waiting room, receptionist Bobbi Martinez was dealing with the closing of a practice that has provided care for three generations of patients.
"He’s retiring at the end of the month, did you know that?" she asked a prospective new patient who called on the phone.
Martinez set up an appointment, then added what sounded like an oft-repeated addendum, "We don’t have a credit card machine, so you’ll have to bring cash."
A graying patient wearing a faded T-shirt and blue jeans walked in to pick up his and his wife’s medical records, and a 40-ish man in sandals and shorts stopped at the reception desk to get permission to pay for that day’s appointment later in the week.
"We’ve had people come in and just cry," Johnston said.
"One thing that’s really sad is that I couldn’t get another doctor to come in here and take care of them. I always hoped that the building would remain medical offices, but I couldn’t sell it to a doctor, so it will be turned into business offices or something."
Johnston was sitting behind his desk in a corner office of the 14-room building, complete with rooms for examinations, baby care, traction, physiotherapy, X-ray and surgery, all stocked with they-don’t-make-them-like-they-used-to equipment that the physician will sell.
"I used to be running in this place, running from room to room, that’s how busy it was," he said.
First triplets
On an office shelf sits a yellowing newspaper photo of a dark-haired Johnston at the bedside of Eva M. Schmunk, for whom he delivered the first-ever set of triplets, two girls and a boy, born at Memorial Hospital of Gardena.
"She had had two sets of twins before that. They had a big family," Johnston said. "Her husband was a bricklayer. After I delivered the triplets I told him, ‘This one’s on me.’ Everyone came down and took pictures, I figured the publicity made up for the fee."
Distinguished service
Johnston was born in Oakland and saw Hermosa for the first time as a 19-year-old U.S. Army aviation cadet.
He would go on to serve in World War II, piloting Gen. Frank Merrill back and forth over the treacherous Himalayan "hump" between China and Burma in a C-47 transport plane and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross.
A framed picture on an office shelf shows the general, best known for his leadership of the jungle fighting "Merrrill’s Marauders." His autograph reads, "To Gordon Johnston, who flew me all over the world without a nick-up, and who, if he is half as good a doctor as he was a pilot, can be counted on as one of the best."
"Those are good memories," Johnston said.
Hermosa half-century
Johnston returned to Hermosa in 1952 with a medical degree from Northwestern University.
"I decided to try general practice and Hermosa Beach was my first choice," Johnston said. "There were eight family doctors already in Hermosa Beach in 1952 and the welcome mat was definitely not out."
He set up shop in four upstairs rooms in a building that preceded the Citibank structure on Hermosa Avenue and Pier. His rent was $75 a month.
"I saw six patients the first day," he said.
Along the way Johnston married and raised four children with his second wife, Wanda.
The fundamental aspects of family practice didn’t change much over a half-century, he said. Technological aspects have changed, for instance lasers have replaced a wire brush machine for "dermabrasions," a scraping of the skin to treat acne scars.
"We see more cancer now because we are diagnosing more cancers, and because we’re getting an older population, you know, ‘the graying of America,’" Johnston said.
Bye bye baby
"I think the best part of my practice has been the babies. There’s a certain satisfaction in delivering the babies and following through with them as they grow up," he said. "I’ve delivered a lot of babies and made a lot of friends. A lot of the older people have become my friends as we grew older together, and that is very nice."
He regrets little, but he did say he missed out on the chance to deliver babies from women who, as babies themselves, were delivered by Johnston. He quit the demanding, odd-hours work of obstetrics just months before he could have had that pleasure.
Johnston said he would be nearing the end of his days in medicine even if the HMO movement hadn’t sucked away so many patients from family physicians.
"At 77 the chances are getting high that I would be deteriorating, mentally and physically. I am grateful that I can walk out the door and still ride my bicycle, and swim every night, and even ride the boogie board a little," he said. "I don’t want to stay too long at the dance." ER