Our Town is mostly a one-trick pony, huge Oklahoma State University economically dominating our little section of planet earth in north central Oklahoma.
Having moved here in the summer, 1953, with my father and sister, I am very well acquainted with the ebbs and flows of the people in-and-out of our piece of Payne County. Thousands of students flock into our city each August, and most have all left by early May. Local activity does calm down with our fall, Christmas, and spring break periods, when most of the students scatter somewhere else outside Our Town.
So, what is most of the student interest about?
Well, obtaining an education, of course.
And, an absolutely essential part of that education factor is the built-in teaching element, dear local readers and those far beyond our city limits.
My family tree is full of teachers. My father, brother, and aunt were all university-level educators for many years. Therefore, it is essential part of my DNA. I also think by living in Our Town so many years, I have absorbed teaching throughout my body by always breathing the local "educational-filled air". One of my primary requirements I needed in all my local student endeavors was to gain subject knowledge on a number of topics. Then, I was able to relate my "learnings" to the public, via my writings for various publications throughout my college days as an undergraduate student at OSU . I was drawn to my news-editorial journalism college major with my ideas of how to educate readers by writing about many different types of subjects. In this way, I was a teacher, and I derived a great deal of personal satisfaction from these writings. Soon, I came to the point in my adult life I needed to make a decision; whether my educational path would take me further in journalism, or I would pursue medicine? I certainly thought about my career decision long and hard. Medicine became the overall choice because it, too, involves a great deal of teaching. I have tried to teach my patients about their specific health concerns now for over 42 years of private practice. I have also mentored well over 100 of my employees, prospective healthcare students, and other medical providers throughout my entire practice lifetime. I truly love explaining the finer points of my specific specialty to young, aspiring high school students or to college-age students. My consenting patients allow me to "teach", while they are sitting in one of my examination rooms. I regularly tell the students education is a powerful thing; once they are taught something, nothing can take that knowledge away from their memory bank.
Over the many years since I began my local practice in October, 1981, I have always been "all-in" when a medical "shadow" spends a few hours with me in my private practice setting. I always tell my staff to assist the students as much as possible while they are shadowing our clinic activities. I want our medically-interested visitors to have a very meaningful experience, seeing all we do, and, most importantly, how we sincerely relate to our patients.
In my clinical medical office setting, I am usually in my full-blown, teacher mode.
Hopefully, my aunt, brother and father former educators, would be proud of my never-ending teaching efforts! It is really one of my lifelong passions.
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