Ti physician passes the torch

TICONDEROGA | When Dr. Glen Chapman retires from Hudson Headwaters this month, a model of family medicine will, in a sense, be retiring with him. Chapman, who is looking forward to more time for birding and music, is approving of both transitions. The prototypical family doctor is increasingly being replaced with teams of medical providers, which means that patients receive faster, more tailored, literally head-to-toe-care — and most important, care in rural underserved communities whose people might otherwise have to drive an hour or more to city medical centers. This month Hudson Headwaters will be moving into its new location at the Ticonderoga campus of Elizabethtown Community Hospital, and it has been adding providers as well, many of whom see rural medicine as a mission. Chapman, who quips that he grew up in Newcomb and then "came to the big city to practice medicine," fit that mold as well, and since 1984 has been the face of Ticonderoga medicine. "There are a few practitioners here who are just the quintessential family doctor, and Glen is certainly one of them," said Dr. Robert Berrick, who has been practicing since 1978 and still refers to Chapman as "the kid." Both see something of a torch-passing, as old methods give way to new. Medicine used to be seen as an inverted T, Berrick said — there was the doctor at the top and then there was everyone else down below. Now, "we're constantly edging into a team approach," he said. Through the years, with so much responsibility heaped upon a relatively few doctors, areas such as Ticonderoga became tough places to practice. Rural hospitals were dying and all the glamor was in the big-name research hospitals. Along with their regular practice, rural doctors took shifts or were on call for the Emergency Rooms, and with the scarcity of local doctors, "on-call" was virtually code for "full time." A lot of country-doctor dues were paid the hard way, doing everything from delivering babies to assisting with surgeries. Chapman said his goal had always been to live and help people in the Adirondacks. It also helped that the Champlain Valley is an important flyway for his feathered friends. Hudson Headwaters, he said, "is a very good organization" that's been recruiting pieces of the health-care-provider puzzle to treat as many things as can be treated locally. The organization seeks practitioners who have an interest in rural medicine, but an interest in the overall health and welfare of the community. "We're attracting that type of person to the area, which I think is very important," said Dr. Kristin Mack, a family medicine practitioner who has such diverse interests as expanding community broadband and battling opioid addiction. "They care about community medicine and their impact on the community as a whole." Loren Allen, a nurse practitioner, and avid mountain biker has found Ticonderoga to be a good fit both personally and professionally. Throughout his schooling and in practice, Allen said he has had an interest in rural and underserved communities, whose people are every bit as deserving of good care as those who live in population centers. And he likes being a face patients recognize. "They really appreciate having someone who knows them," he said. Allen said he's also been grateful for veterans such as Berrick and Chapman and the wealth of knowledge they have been happy to share. Chapman said the goodbyes with multiple generations of patients he's treated makes retirement bittersweet. "The last two months have been hard," he said. "You take care of them and you have a relationship." But he will gain something that family physicians seldom have: time. Chapman, a talented musician as well as a physician, said he wants to focus on music and birdwatching, and that he and his wife Malinda will have time to visit their kids on the West Coast. "And I'd like to read a book," he said.

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Ti physician passes the torch

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