First person: Dr. Robert C. Raynor

Dr. Robert C. Raynor was honored at the Nov. 7 Governor football game for 50 years of service to Nelson County High School athletes. Dr. Raynor has performed yearly physicals for athletes as well as been on the sideline of at least one football game for 50 years. He recently retired from Afton Family Medicine, but continues to serve two local nursing homes as the medical director.

Dr. Raynor, 78, earned his medical degree from UVa. He and his wife of 36 years, Shirley, live in Afton.

On his service to the high school:

(I’ve been) doing physicals for the athletes in the fall when school starts. And then, when I first came here there were only two doctors in the county. Well, there were three doctors in the county, but only two of us did all the work for the high school. So we did every other home game.

Now that there are so many doctors in the county, each of us only has to do one home game. There’s no money involved.

On being on the sideline during games:

All of them are exciting because most of the time you know so many of the players. A lot of them are my patients. We had four children that went to Nelson County High School. I had one that played football until he hurt his knee. He had knee surgery and that ended his football career. He’s a lawyer now.

I enjoy young people. I enjoy being with them and around them. And I enjoy athletics. I didn’t play football. I went to a small school (Albemarle County) that didn’t even have a football team. I lettered in basketball and baseball, and I’ve always been interested in sports. I watch football games on Sunday afternoons.

On football injuries:

The kids are so well protected. The paddings are so good; their shoulder pads, their leg pads, their knee pads, the way they’re taped, they’re so well protected that it’s rare that they get hurt.

Knees and ankles (are the most common). Sprained ankles and torn ligaments in knees. It’s always scary when someone has a concussion because you don’t know whether it’s a bleed or just a bruise. If it’s just a bruise on the brain it’s a concussion and they’ll be over that soon. But when they’re unconscious you’re never sure if it’s a bleed or not. You’re just hoping they’ll come around. Fortunately, that’s not too common.

On the biggest change in 50 years of football:

Better equipment. They wore the same type of equipment, but it wasn’t nearly as good. When they would have an injury, they would examine the equipment to see why and improve it. They did this constantly over the years. Occasionally you get a shoulder separation, but that’s rare. (It used to be) a lot more common. The shoulder pads now come down over the clavicle in the front, so it’s well protected.

On what he likes to see on the football field:

Kids performing. Of course I like for them to win, but I like to see them perform, do their job. The kids are great. Sportsmanship is just so important.

They learn there’s teamwork in sportsmanship. They learn this at the high school level. Regardless of what they do with the rest of their lives, if they learn that in high school they’re much better adults.

On delivering some of the players through the years:

When I went into practice there was only one OBGYN doctor in Waynesboro at the hospital. He did complicated obstetrics, and the rest of us did deliveries. I had obstetrics in my residency training. I delivered babies for 30 years. So now a lot of the kids that are having babies themselves are kids that I delivered when I first went into practice. Then there got to be enough OBGYN doctors around that could take care of all the deliveries. The malpractice insurance was getting so high that most of us were glad to get out of deliveries. When you’re in solo practice, there’s nobody else to take care of your patients when you’re at the hospital. It made my practice a lot better by not doing obstetrics.

On some of the biggest changes in medicine:

One of the biggest changes was when I went into practice, the hospitals had emergency rooms, but the emergency rooms weren’t staffed. So if your patient went to the emergency room, you had to go to the emergency room to see them. So in the middle of the night, for my patients over here, it was easier for me to meet them at the office or have them come (to my home) to see them or go make a house call than it was to go all the way to Waynesboro to see them.

Unless it was an injury or laceration, something that I needed material and a nurse to help me, or they needed x-rays, I would just see them here or at the office as opposed to going to the hospital. But then the hospitals saw the emergency room as a money-making operation, so they began to hire staff to staff the emergency rooms, and the emergency rooms became busy 24 hours. So that took a whole lot of burden from people in family practice. That cut down a lot on the house calls.

Then rescue squads came into being. When the rescue squads came into being, it really cut out a whole lot of the house calls. We still go see older patients. It was in the late sixties and early seventies.

On being a medical examiner:

I’ve seen a lot of gruesome stuff from the aspect of a medical examiner. A lot of gunshots, all of that sort of thing.

There were two other doctors in the county when I came here (1958). Both of them were medical examiners. They asked for me to be so I could cover them. Now the other two are dead, and I’m the only one alive. None of the young doctors want to be medical examiners. I’m stuck with it for the time being.

I don’t know that it’s the toughest (aspect of his work), but it’s one of the most unpleasant.

On not completely retiring:

I enjoy it. I’m not ready just to sit down and do yard work. My wife does yard work all the time, and I help her out. But I don’t want to shut the rest of the world out. I still enjoy medicine.

On the science and art of practicing medicine:

Both are important. Being a scientist and knowing what to do doesn’t necessarily make you a good doctor. Being a friend of the patient and a family confidant doesn’t necessarily make you a good physician. There has to be an overlap for you to be a good physician. You have to be a scientist. You have to be knowledgeable. You have to keep up, go back to school periodically and read the journals so that your patients are getting, from a scientific standpoint, good medical care.

But you also have to be understanding, compassionate, their friend. They have to comfortable in their presence and feel like they can tell you anything under the sun. So many doctors are somewhat aloof, pure scientists. They’re good doctors, but people don’t want to talk to them. So often patients have things that they really need to talk about that aren’t really medical problems. They have things that are just worrying the hell out of them and they need to talk about it. That’s part of the practice, too.

So there is an art to medicine. There’s a science, and both are important. I don’t think either one of them without the other one makes you a complete physician.

On the rising obesity rates among young people:

It’s a real problem. It’s a multi-reasoned problem. Bad eating habits from parents which are passed onto the children (like) fast food, too many fats in their diets. Also not enough exercise. Kids sitting in front of a computer or TV set. So it’s a combination of poor diet and inactivity. We all eat too much.

(I’d like to see) compulsory physical education for every age. Every day. Also, it shouldn’t just be at school. People should go hiking with their kids. They should get into little league. They should be soccer parents. They should encourage their kids to get into sports. To play, not just for health reasons but for teamwork and sportsmanship.

I think that our kids are growing up lazy and fat. They don’t know how to do anything except computer and TV. They’re great with electronics. They need to be out of the house. They need to ride bicycles. They need to go on hikes. There should be a limited number of hours of TV. Our kids, when they came home were in high school growing up, everybody in the family loved M.A.S.H. When M.A.S.H. came on, everybody in the family came in, and then they went back to doing homework. And that was it.

On his favorite physical activity:

We hike a lot. All over, anywhere in the mountains. Have somebody take you up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, get out and walk down the mountain without following any particular trail. Not during hunting season. Or go on the Appalachian Trail. Go in at Reed’s Gap and come out at Tye River. That’s a good hike. Or go up to Humpback picnic grounds and hike back to Humpback Rock. There are short hikes that you can take that are real good.

Albemarle County, Greene County, Old Rag, there’s a lot of excellent places.

On keeping balanced through the years:

I don’t know. Just personality I guess. I’m able to shut it out. Do something physical. Go split wood, take a hike. I still cut wood. (Shirley) helps a lot with my attitude, worries and so forth.