The way we were and the way we are

A traveling salesman went into the Burns' Drug Store on Main Street in Danbury one morning in July 1958.

Bill, one of the two brothers who owned the pharmacy, told the salesman that he looked terrible and asked what happened.

"Well, I took ill last night and this young doctor made a house call and came to see me at the Green Hotel where I was staying," the salesman said.

The pharmacist asked which doctor had come to see him and the salesman told him it was a young fellow named Schwartz.

"Schwartz?" the pharmacist asked. "We don't have any doctors named Schwartz here in Danbury."

"What do you mean you don't have any Schwartz's here?" the salesman replied. "He said he was a doctor!"

"No, no, look here I'll show you the Yellow Pages," the pharmacist insisted. "See, there are no Schwartz's here."

"The horrified salesman was convinced he had been treated by a charlatan," reminisced a chuckling and now 81-year-old Dr. Raphael (Ray) Schwartz.

At the time, Schwartz was new to Danbury and the only gastroenterologist in town. That's why he was unknown to the pharmacist.

"I made house calls and had a little black bag," Schwartz announced proudly.

Schwartz's first year in Danbury, he covered for every family doctor in town on Wednesdays and ended up quite literally being at the mercy of the telephone.

"This was an all-night affair," Schwartz said, adding, "I don't know how I functioned on Thursdays."

Schwartz described Danbury Hospital in 1958 as looking more like a "bed and breakfast inn." He said the conditions at the time to perform medicine were "absolutely horrendous."

"Everything was done in one big (emergency) room probably no more than 20 feet by 40 feet," Schwartz said. "I remember I was given one table in one corner on the mornings that I wanted to do a gastroscopy.

"There was really just one doctor that worked as the emergency room physician. There were three or four board-certified surgeons, but most of the doctors in practice were all family doctors, general practitioners and, with all due credit and respect, these were the gentlemen who were doing major surgery.

"We had only one anesthesiologist at that time...It was really, basically a slightly improved version of what we saw on the TV show, M*A*S*H."

In spite of the hardships, what Schwartz loved about being a doctor in those days was that he didn't have to look at the clock and could spend as much time as needed to care for his patients.

Schwartz explained that in recent years, concerns about litigation, low reimbursement for services, spiraling malpractice insurance premiums and the ever-increasing cost of doing business are dramatically impacting medical care.

"This new legislation that is now law," Schwartz said, "will make care available to a wider circle of patients...but look, I know at least a dozen physicians -- younger than me, competent, capable -- who are no longer accepting Medicare because if they do, they cannot keep their practice solvent.

"They're also curtailing what you can do, what you can prescribe, what diagnostic procedures you might consider for the patient."

He believes the demands of the system have left little time to nurture the doctor-patient relationship.

"I think this is the major failing in medical care today" Schwartz said. "No question that the quality of the technology is fabulous.

"But probably in 70 percent of the patients we saw, there was a psychological underlying cause of the symptoms that brought them to me. If you didn't take the time to pursue that and offer some emotional support, you were never going to relieve them of their distress."

Retired since 2001, Schwartz is proud to have played a "small role" in making Danbury Hospital what it is today and said that, in his opinion, it is probably the best quality hospital in the state.

"In terms of what's available to patients: the quality, the facility, the resources, the specialties, the clinic facility...It's just unbelievable to think of the changes that have taken place," Schwartz said. "And I don't see how the people, here in town now, can begin to appreciate their blessing: the Danbury Hospital."

Dr. Schwartz recommends a new book by Carl Peterson, "Challenge and Change: The History of Danbury Hospital 1885-2010," that is "a marvelous compilation" of photographs and history of the Danbury Hospital.

Linda Napier is a registered nurse and independent patient advocate living in Southbury who is author of the book Tender Medicine. You can contact her via email at lindanapier@netzero.com.