North Country Doctor
Instead of a horse and buggy, New Hampshire country doctor WILLIAM F. PUTNAM '30 drives a red Saab equipped with intravenous apparatus, a portable delivery table, and a modest pharmacy.
But it isn't his modern, mobile preparedness that distinguishes this North Country doctor. He is the medical rarity nowadays who is ever available for hand-holding or head-stitching, who knows his patients' medical and family histories, who has equal respect for his own ability and limitations.
For more than 30 years he has been Lyme's family doctor and his practice covers about 1000 square miles. He has part-time assistance from another doctor but takes all night calls himself.
Dr. Putnam recalls, "One day I traveled 200 miles in 24 hours, delivered two babies, attended a conference in Hanover, and saw almost two-dozen patients while driving through two states and three counties."
"Anything that's difficult, he immediately thinks he can do it," his wife Mildred says.
Between producing and caring for six children she has served as bookkeeper, receptionist, and office nurse. And as the doctor's practice grew she has had to relinquish her living room, kitchen, and a bedroom for extra office space and examining rooms. Their residence near the green in Lyme now has a huge front office with x-ray equipment and twelve feet of files (the rest are in the basement), three complete examining rooms, a small surgery, and "the world's smallest lavatory" which also serves as a darkroom for developing x-rays and electrocardiograms.
An honored member of the Academy of General Practice, the nation's second largest medical organization, Dr. Putnam is required to do continual postgraduate study to maintain that membership. In 1958 he won their top prize, the Ross Award, for a paper on "Long-Term Anticoagulant Therapy," and in 1963 he was chosen family physician of the year by the Academy's New Hampshire chapter.
In addition to private practice he is a trustee and chief of staff at Lebanon's Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital. He also serves as New Hampshire's Grafton County medical referee and as regional medical examiner in Vermont. He patronizingly refers to those criminals he has helped convict as "my murderers."
His wife is fond of telling stories that reflect his, ingenuity and close relationship with his patients.
"Once he used the inverter in his car's electrical system to run an electrocardiograph in a place where the power had failed."
She always goes along when there's a home delivery - two or three a year. "They're wonderful," she says. "Babies are had at home today for the pure joy of it."
The doctor reminded one mother planning such an event that he expected fresh doughnuts the day he came to deliver her. She was overdue and made them every morning for two weeks.
A story his wife tells proudly recalls the time roads were bad and the doctor made his calls in an army command car. One particularly muddy night he used his chains to pull an abandoned car from the mud. The owner guessed who had been in the area and had rescued his car. He sent an unsigned post card that reflects the sentiments of most of Dr. Putnam's patients: "Friend Doc, that was mighty nice of you."
