Indianapolis ( the early years )

Once I got through the long first call 4th of July, I settled into the every other night and weekend call……..which was a breeze compared to residency. The problem was covering 2 hospitals, though they were about 10 blocks away it was a pain being at one and having patients at the other either in labor or needing surgery. Also one was Catholic and did not allow sterilization so that was another hassle for patients.
I mentioned earlier that following progress in labor was routinely done by rectal exams performed by nurses and many a night I made a trip in for delivery that turned out to be hours from happening.I finally instructed the nurses to do vaginal exams on my patients before calling me. This turned into a big patient care debate in the OB section because there was a group of older Ob’s who had never trained in Gyn and these more recent methods of patient care made them resistive to change, especially from a young (Black) upstart like me. One of the things I noticed in my 40 years of practice was that I was put on most of the standing committees but never elected as an officer in the section. Nor do I remember Frank Lloyd being elected, though they made him director of the OB residency program. That was fortuitous since the program before him, at Methodist, was shaky at best and to his credit he turned it around.

When I got to Indianapolis Methodist and St Vincent’s hospitals had 3 year program taking 2 residents/year and the training was far from being very structured. There were several residents I became friendly with one was a guy named Tom who to this day we are the best of friends. We both liked music and for that reason I would take him to the jazz scene that was a happening in Indy.
Over time as a lark, we both decided to buy guitars and feed our musical calling. Many a night if he was off and I had a late delivery, we would drop into the “Hub Bub” or “ Cactus Club” to hear Wes or Mc Duff or Jimmy Smith and after closing the club go to an all nighter to breakfast with the musicians. One time Tom went to Mardi Gras and took his guitar and somebody stole it with all his money which was hidden in the guitar case. He called me and I wired him get home money and we became fast friends. Of all the white people I have known, I can say he was truly color blind. And I use to joke to him that if a race riot was going to go down ( this was 1963-64) I would give him warning enough to flee so I wouldn’t have to make a choice if it came to it being about him.
This is a guy who is a superb surgeon, intellectually brilliant but wild enough in his behavior to be a Harley biker and as the saying goes “he does not suffer fools easily.”
There were only 3 Black OB/GYN’s in town and Frank had a huge practice going on 9 years when I joined him. I thought that he taking me in as a partner in 3 years was a great opportunity since if we clicked personally our success was assured.
As far as my family was concerned, my wife had little adjustment to make and within 4 weeks of arriving delivered a beautiful little girl, Diane. I had gone out with a friend and purchased a pedigreed German Shepard “Titan” and so I had all I wanted ( $100, dog, Jack Daniel, and my ice maker fridge).
My good friend Cup came to visit from Michigan for Labor day ’63 and we drank (most of the Jack) and ate and rehashed how good life was turning out for us.
Frank had a private nurse Judy who was also office manager and personal everything to him and I was impressed with her smarts and organizational skills. This put me at some disadvantage since I was basically practicing alone on my “nickel” part of the “dime.”Business is a two way street and being the junior I was like caught in a situation that things were going on that I was not privy to.
Out of the blue, sometime in Oct or Nov of ’63, Frank told me he had been offered a full time position at Methodist Hospital as Director of Medical Research…….GREAT! but what about me? Than he said “I’ll sell you the practice(for a fair amount) with terms that you pay me monthly until the amount is paid off, roughly 3 years.” I had not planned to be in a solo OB practice because I knew the stress it had physically and mentally on you, St Louis had schooled me to that.
I was now caught in an untenable position having bought a house, had 3 kids, a dog, 2 cars and adjusting to a good salary and now being presented with the headache of owning and running a practice by myself which I wasn’t interested in being a business man. I just wanted to work and be paid fairly. I talked this over with my wife and decided that my choices were nil since I had not practiced long enough to save anything plus I would have to start over somewhere and that could be worse. So I accepted the offer and then immediately called over to St. Louis to see if any of the residents in training were interested in joining up with me. When they found out how busy I was and the volume I handled no one wanted to work that hard after leaving the “G’s.” So I was stuck with a huge OB practice 30-40 deliveries a month and an office full of Gyn patients. But the kicker was the Gyn surgery referrals would continue to flow to Frank, since he had established his base over the years and Methodist allowed him to continue to have a private Gyn practice.
(Basically I was fucked)……….what say you?
Nor was this the et tu Bruti moment. He negotiated with his bank to loan him the value of my note ( to get a lump sum) on the practice making me the holder of the loan to be paid monthly over the next 3 years ( he would pay the interest).
Was this fair, probably since the amount for the practice was the same, but was it right……I believe not, since I got a practice that had the prime portion (GYN) carved out which left me with the unbelievable work load of the OB volume with a small financial return and the big reimbursed Gyn cases gone and no prospects for a partner.
The other problem was the office was owned by him and a partner who was a dentist in the same building to who I would be paying rent. I saw that this was not the best deal for me but tried to make the best of what I had.
On top of this, I had to prepare to take my written exams in July of ’64 and if I passed take the orals in Nov ’66.
Only the young can survive this kind of pressure and I had no problem doing the work, what pissed me off was the compensation was not commensurate with the work, and the business side of practice was not something I cared for. If I have a fault and I have more than a few, I don’t deal with minutia well.
The nurse I hired to be what I hoped would be another Judy did a good job but I found her involving herself too much in my personal life. She later left after 10 years based on her feelings about my stand on a woman’s right to access abortion.
When I look back I really wasn’t happy in the way my practice was going. My referring physicians were still sending OB patient’s to me as they had to Frank but I decided to end that relationship since I felt the prenatal care was remiss.
Naturally, I alienated all of theses doctors. So I went about building my own kind of practice with a new patient base and oh so gradually I felt more in control. My aim was to stick it out until I passed my boards and then see what my options were on relocating since my friend in Atlanta was still bugging me to come there.