Dr. George Day has been practicing medicine in the tri-state area for more than 50 years and says there are no intentions of retiring from the field any time soon.

In July of 1959, Dr. George Day, his wife and three week old son moved back to Harrogate and was the first doctor to open up an office in the town.

The doctor’s office sat below the apartment he and his family rented.

“When we first opened it was slow but we saw a lot of changes,” Dr. Day said, “we started off charging two dollars for an office visit but it gradually went up as managed care came into play.”

Dr. Day graduated from the University of Tennessee-Memphis with his medical degree but also attended Carson Newman College and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He completed his internship at Nashville General Hospital, which was a large hospital that served the entire city of Nashville. There he was able to study under attending doctors from Vanderbilt University.

He said that he always envisioned coming back to Claiborne County.

“I was raised on a farm down the valley and had always envisioned coming back here and living here and now I’ve been here 50 years,” he said of starting his practice in Claiborne County.

When he first opened his office, he made house calls and delivered babies for about twenty years. At times, he even delivered some babies in his office because at the time the hospital was not completed. He said that he had not been trained in at home birthing so the mother’s would come into the office and have them right there on the examination table.

He said that during this time, there was no ambulance service so mortuaries were called to transport patients to and from home, which included taking the mother and baby home after delivery.

In 1966, changes came that Dr. Day and his staff had to adjust to. Managed care was introduced that required more paperwork and required more people to handle it.

Dr. Day moved his practice in 1983 to the office that he still practices in today and the practice expanded. It then took more employees to cover all of the paperwork that came with the billing for TennCare, Medicare and other forms of manage care. He said that it used to be only him and one other person in the office but as times changes more employees were needed.

Dr. Day has seen many changes in practicing medicine in his 50 years.

“I didn’t have to learn about ultra sounds or CT scans and MRI’s they didn’t have them then,” he said, “CPR hadn’t even been invented by then, by-pass, stints or angioplasty because there was just no way to do them.”

He said that occasionally you would hear of someone who would have cardiac arrest and an intern or resident would pull out their pocketknife, cut open their chest and massage their heart with their hand.

In 1959, compressions and breathing were not even being practiced at the Mayo Clinic. CPR was not something that doctors were doing until the 60’s. Before then, hear patients would simply be put to bed and given oxygen and morphine for the pain because there was nothing else to do.

As time progressed and medical technology advanced there is so much more to offer patients. Claiborne County Hospital is where Dr. Day has had most of his complicated tests done such as CT’s and MRI’s since the hospital opened.

He recalls a time when the road to get patients to Knoxville was rough and there were no helicopters to utilize in times of emergency. He said it was during this time they relied on the mortuaries to get the patients to Knoxville in times of need. But as the hospital grew they got equipment that could be used without having to send patients to Knoxville.

He spoke about when the hospital got it’s first CT scan in 1990 and feels that they have a lot of good technology and feels they are going to get better.

One example was the need for specialists in the area and now patients have their specialists right here without going to great lengths to find one.

Of his own practice, he said that it’s been the special relationship between himself and his patients that makes the job easier.

“Think about people you’ve treated four or five generations of their family. You don’t have to ask a whole lot about the family history, you just know it,” he said, “If there is diabetes or cancer in the family then you know you have to stay on top of things.”

He said his patients have been good to him throughout the years. Even now, he said patients bring him vegetables from their gardens, homemade sausage and other goodies to take home.

When asked if 50 years ago he thought he would still be doing this he said, “Oh yeah, I knew I would, if I had the health. That’s the thing you don’t know at my age is how many more days God is going to let you live,” Dr. Day continued, “I mean, I will be here twenty years from now if I have the health but it won’t be because I want to retire. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

He said that he hasn’t had a full weeks vacation in over a year because he loves coming in to work every morning and just doesn’t want the long vacation. He said he is able to get long weekends thanks to his help but by the end of the weekend, he is ready to come back to work.

He said the thing that makes him go into work every morning is simply because he loves what he does. He says he feels it is more of a hobby than a job for him.

“If you have a job you love then you’ll never work another day in your life and that’s how I feel,” Dr. Day said, “I have loyal employees and have been blessed with that since I came here.”

The staff at Dr. Day’s office held a dinner for him in celebration of his 50 years in practice and several people from the community showed up with cards and praises of his work in the community.

“The relationship you have with patients if the big reward. Like all the people that bring me stuff to take home means more to me than anything,” he said, “that kind of friendship and relationship that we have is the reward.”

Dr. Day has worked in the medical field for 50 years and has seen changes and progress to the field but says he would not change the course of his life.

“Everyday is a good day for me, it really is,” said Dr. Day, “I don’t remember any specific thing that is a whole lot better than the other, every day is a good day.”

Assisting Dr. Day in the office are natives to the area P.A. Teresa Rasmussen and FNP Elizabeth Larew, both of which he says he does not know what he would do if they were not there.

Recently new to the practice is Elizabeth Larew, FNP who spoke of how she admires the work Dr. Day has done for the community.

“You can tell deep down that he cares about his patients that it’s not just a business,” Larew said, “he cares about what happens to them, and that’s why I went into nursing because I want to take care of people and he does, he’s a great mentor.”

Elizabeth went to nursing school at the University of Kentucky and graduate school at the University of Arizona.

She worked part time from May of 2008 until January of this year when she became full time. She holds late clinic on Monday from 1:00 pm until each patient can be seen.

Teresa has worked at Family Medical for 4 years with Dr. Day but has been a Physicians Assistant for 10 years.

Dr. Day said that the he feels to close with his staff at the office that they are like family to him and looks forward to each day he gets to spend with them and what the future will bring to the practice.