Today let’s meet a rural doctor who practices medicine but doesn’t have patients. You may ask, “How can that be?”
The answer is that the people he sees are more than patients – he sees them as friends and neighbors. This type of relationship with those in his care has led to a lifelong career in practicing rural medicine.
At right: Dr. Tom Walsh
Last week we learned about the Community HealthCare System in northeast Kansas where Dr. Tom Walsh practices. He will retire at the end of 2021 after 46 years of practicing medicine in the rural community of Onaga, population 751 people. Now, that’s rural.
Dr. Walsh’s father Eugene was a family doctor in Onaga as well. After medical school, Eugene came to Onaga for one year to help his friend Dr. Fleckenstein – but he liked Onaga so much he never left.
Tom and his brother accompanied their dad on house calls. Tom decided to follow his father into the medical field. “I knew what I was getting into,” Tom said.
“When my folks took me to college (at Notre Dame), it was the first time I had ever been east of Kansas City,” Tom said. After graduation, he went to medical school at KU. He also met and married Marcia.
In 1975, Dr. Tom Walsh and Marcia moved to Onaga to join his father’s practice. Dr. Walsh would later become affiliated with what is now the Community HealthCare System of northeast Kansas. Marcia would rise to become the system’s chief operating officer. Continue reading “Dr. Tom Walsh, Onaga Community HealthCare System”
