2002 DCMS President's Profile - Don R. Read, MD List of Past President Pages

Don R. Read’s first day of his first rotation on his residency at Northwestern University was at the Veterans Administration hospital in Chicago. That was in 1968—the height of the Vietnam War. Having joined the Navy during his sophomore year of medical school, he had three months to decide whether he’d serve a tour of duty in the jungle among the Viet Cong or commit five years to the institution where he would complete his residency. With the VA hospital as his only reference, he chose not to defer and reported to active duty the next year.

Although his experience at the VA hospital was such that he preferred to practice in a war zone, it did have one redeeming quality. On that first day of his first rotation on his residency at the VA hospital, he met his future wife, Roberta Teeling. “I met a beautiful nurse willing to help me out and take care of me,” Dr Read says. They were married on Flag Day in 1969, nine weeks before he left for basic training and Vietnam.

Dr Read, a general medical officer in the 1st Medical Battalion, worked in a setting much like you’d see in M*A*S*H reruns —although without as much comedy.

“I spent my days in the orthopaedic service picking shrapnel out of arms and legs,” he says. “We had four operating tables in a Quonset hut.”

Three months later he was sent to the bush to be a battalion surgeon in the 1st Marine Division. Although the risk of getting shot by the enemy was a daily threat, the real threat, Dr Read says, was disgruntled soldiers who couldn’t convince a physician they needed a medical release.

“When soldiers came into sick call, it was my job to decide whether they could return to the field,” Dr Read recalls. “One of those guys tried to kill another doctor by booby-trapping the john.”

It was a long way from that VA hospital in Chicago.

“When I arrived I believed that at any moment I was going to be killed,” Dr Read says. “Then I decided that maybe it was worth the risk to go to the PX for a fan—otherwise, I might die from the heat. Surviving that trip emboldened me to make more trips. I got braver the longer I was there until just before my year was up. I had almost made it and became convinced I would die. The last two weeks ended up just like the first two weeks.”

Becoming a physician wasn’t quite like he imagined when he was a boy growing up in Dallas, dreaming of his future while playing in the backyard. “I knew I wanted to be a doctor when other boys wanted to be fire fighters or pilots,” Dr Read says. “Fortunately, my aptitude in science was such that it allowed me to pursue my dream.”

That dream began at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, after he graduated from Austin College in Sherman. After serving his second year in the Navy, (after his year in Vietnam) in Portsmouth, NH, he and Roberta—and their baby Sarah—returned to Chicago, where Dr Read began his residency in general surgery at Northwestern. He spent two years at Northwestern University Hospital, followed by three-and-half years at Cook County Hospital.

“Northwestern offered the finest of private patient care,” Dr Read says. “But at Cook County I could operate on anything that moved. I got better experience there than I ever would have at Northwestern.”

Although he was eight when he made up his mind to be a physician, that’s not when he made the decision to become a colon/rectal surgeon. That came late in his training after observing two colon/rectal surgeons doing rectal operations that he says were aesthetically pleasing to watch.

“These physicians were having a good time and I had never seen anyone doing a rectal operation having a good time before,” Dr Read says about the field that ultimately became his specialty. “I can almost always make everyone better, and it’s both a medical and surgical practice.”

In 1978, Dr Read left his positions in Chicago as attending surgeon and director of surgical education at Cook County Hospital, and returned to Texas with his family, which now included a second daughter, Alison, and began his practice at Medical City Dallas. In 1989 he became president of the medical staff and served on the board of trustees.

Randall W. Crim, MD, a partner of Dr Read’s since 1990, believes he will be a thorough leader for the medical society. “He was our managing partner for six years during the time we grew from three to seven physicians,” Dr Crim says. “He did an excellent job through that growth phase. It takes a lot of time and effort to manage a practice and on top of that he is well-liked. The word I would associate with him is ‘kindness.’ When he has taken my call on the weekend, my patients comment what a nice, caring physician he is. My patients see that kindness after only a few days, and that’s what I see too.”

Dr Read’s introduction to organized medicine came when he was asked to serve on the DCMS Fee Complaint Committee in 1988. Soon he was elected to the board of directors, serving from 1992 through 1993. But Dr Read found his niche when he led the Physician Recovery Committee from 1997 until 2000.

Former DCMS president John E. Eisenlohr, MD, formed the committee in 1979, the year physicians first recognized chemical dependency as a disease. At the time it was the only committee of its kind among county medical societies in the state and it developed without guidelines or rulebooks to become a successful, respected program for the membership.

In 1997 Dr Read was appointed by then-DCMS president Roland E. Black, MD, to head the Physician Recovery Committee because of his work developing such a committee for Medical City Dallas Hospital.

“As the president of the medical staff, the hospital sent me to a conference where I sat in on a lecture about drug and alcohol problems,” Dr Read recalls. “The presenter quoted national statistics for physicians with chemical dependency and I could hardly believe them—they seemed too high.” Dr Read realized that if those numbers were right, he would know colleagues who were addicted.

“Our medical staff had no way to deal with physicians in recovery, other than the disciplinary arm,” he says. “There was no way to supervise or intervene—we could only kick them off the staff.” Dr Read learned in that lecture that 80 percent to 85 percent of physicians are rehabilitated; therefore, he believed that anyone on his hospital staff with a problem could be helped and would no longer be dangerous to patients.

“I saw the work that he was doing at Medical City,” says Dr Black about why he appointed Dr Read to lead DCMS’ Physician Recovery Committee. “Every decision that man makes is based on an ethical fairness that few people can replicate day in and day out. That’s what he did at Medical City.” And, he adds, that’s what he’s done for Dallas County, too.

“It’s heartwarming to help someone who gets the treatment he needs and comes back to become a long-term, useful member of the physician community,” Dr Read says of his work with the committee. “There are a few sad stories along the way—physicians who don’t recover—but it’s exciting to see a physician get back on track after his whole world has crumbled.”

Dr Read has made a career of caring for patients and for physicians, and in this spirit he will become the 119th president of the Dallas County Medical Society.

“As president of DCMS, I will be inheriting two spectacular works in progress,” he says. The first is the DCMS Board of Health, which has done a phenomenal job of setting up a coordinated response plan for potential bioterrorism—long before Sept 11—and has done a fantastic job of educating DCMS physicians, the media, and the city and county governments about the realities, myths, and misconceptions about anthrax. The second is Project Access, a program for providing medical care to the working poor of Dallas, which we will have in action in a pilot stage in 2002.

His goals are to continue with these programs, and to serve members by promoting their interests and good patient care.

“We are blessed with extremely talented members who give generously of their time and talents to ensure that each area of action in DCMS is carried out superbly,” he says. “My job is to encourage and coordinate the efforts of these physicians who comprise the DCMS committees and the DCMS delegation to the TMA.”

While Dr Read has the utmost respect for his colleagues, his colleagues look to him as a role model. “I never saw him make any decision that was not in the best interest of the patient whether it inconvenienced me, him, anesthesia, or anyone else,” says Dr Black, who has assisted Dr Read in numerous surgical cases. “My conclusion after working with him is that he is the best physician I have ever worked with in my career.”

His long-time colleague and friend Saul Sokol, MD, concurs. “Professionally there is no better quality individual than Dr. Read. He is concerned for his patients, respected by his colleagues, and ethical in every way,” he says. “He does not run into fast judgment or statements. He takes his time to evaluate all situations and expresses his feelings in an unbiased way. He will make a great president for the medical society.”

Serving as DCMS president shouldn’t be as challenging as Vietnam service, but perhaps it will be just as rewarding.