NEIGHBORS HELPING NEIGHBORS

Our recent expansion of the Clinic, with new facilities to house enhanced medicine, enables our volunteer medical specialists to treat most patients on site at the Clinic, saving them the time and travel required for referral appointments elsewhere. Of course, this is completely dependent on having medical professionals who generously volunteer their time and expertise to see Clinic patients. We could not do what we do without our volunteers!

Recently prompted by a few questions, Dr. Newell Falkinburg, a Clinic physician volunteer of long standing, agreed to sit with us for a chat…

In 1988, I moved to Florida from Roanoke, Virginia with a plan to retire, although I was still returning north one weekend a month to work for my old medical group. After four years of that, it became unfulfilling, and I finally retired completely.

Not surprisingly, shortly after retiring, I found that I missed medicine very much. Luckily, right around that time, I learned about the Clinic and met with Bill Lascheid. I began volunteering in June 2004, and have done so ever since. It has made my “retirement” perfect!

I continue to volunteer at the Clinic because I love medicine, and because there is a great need for medical care on the part of these patients, who are resource-poor, yet have serious medical needs. The Clinic helps fulfill the medical needs of these patients who would otherwise slip through the cracks in the “social safety net.” Whenever I meet newly retired physicians, I always urge them to consider volunteering at the Clinic. My old practice was and is predominantly a consulting nephrology practice with a very large portion of inpatients, often in intensive care units. The level of acute disease was much higher, certainly than that of patients routinely seen at the Clinic.

However, diabetes, in all its forms, is the most common and concerning sickness that I see among Clinic patients, with hypertension a distant second.

Being a doctor and practicing medicine on my own schedule, focused on helping patients who have nowhere else to go, is the most fulfilling aspect of volunteering at the Clinic. Patients here receive good medical care, including medication, health maintenance and appropriate education regarding their diseases.

In my spare time, I play golf, work out, read, and spend quality time with my wife… whether I want to or not!