Dr. Forney - Stories from BBGH

In this episode of Over the Counter we sat down with Dr. Bruce Forney to talk about his nearly 50 years of experience as a provider as well as his recent retirement.

Transcript

0:10  
Hi everyone, welcome back to over the counter. This is Aubrie Lawrence from BBGH's marketing team. Today we are talking to Dr. Bruce Forney, who has recently retired from BBGH after almost 50 years of serving the Alliance community. Right. So we're gonna go ahead and get started at first I just kind of want you to introduce yourself what you did for BBGH all those years. How long have you worked here? Stuff like that. Okay. Can I start before that? Yeah.

0:42  
I grew up on a ranch South of Rushville, always wanted to be a rancher. And when I got ready to go to high school, my dad said, there's five of you kids and you're the oldest, said we can't split the ranch up five ways. So he said you're gonna have to get an education. So it wasn't until that time that I considered or ever plan to be a physician. But

2:14  
They were in the process of building a new hospital. Sounded like a fun place to be. So simple.

3:15  
emergency rooms and Wisconsin and Northeast Iowa like Dubuque Iowa.

5:38  
One of my favorite moments was walking in the front door of the new clinic that Dr. Fairbanks and I built the Alliance Medical Center at 2307 Box Butte Avenue. And that was just north of the hospital here. And

5:55  
we had a beautiful facility with in-house X ray and lab and

6:24  
You'd see him making rounds in the morning at the hospital and you'd say what's on your schedule the day and he'd say, Well, I'm just going to the clinic and I'm going to

6:36  
save lives and stamp out disease. That was his pat answer. So he was a real positive thinker. And so we practice together about 15 years.

6:50  
And so

6:54  
sadly, he, after retirement

7:00  
ended up

7:02  
calling me one day and said, Bruce, I'm just calling you to tell you goodbye. And I said, What do you mean, tell me goodbye. And he said that he had

7:13  
been to the emergency room and had an MRI of his brain and had a

7:19  
malignancy. So that was sad for me, but had a lot of great partners. I can't think of them all.

7:31  
Dr. Pierce start Fairbanks.

7:36  
Larry Eisen was a physician assistant. That was very good Steve Rolls.

7:45  
Lot of lot of good helpers.

7:48  
I had a special nurse

7:52  
for a number of years, Karen McLaughlin, and

7:57  
she was great help and people loved her. And

8:04  
she loved most of them. She did say that.

8:10  
One day, when she came back from lunch, she said,

8:14  
Dr. Forney When I go downtown, I'm not gonna tell anybody that I work for you anymore. And I said, why not? She said, well, at noon today, I walked down town and this little boy walked up to me and said, Are you Dr. Forney's nurse? And she said, Yes, I am.

8:33  
She said, he kicked me in the shin with his cowboy boots.

8:38  
She said, You drew my blood and it hurt.

8:42  
So anyhow, we had a lot of fun. So

8:48  
we had a few secrets too; one

8:52  
One of the secrets was

8:56  
that we immunized

8:58  
a large part of the lion's population for influenza vaccine every year. And

9:07  
the secret was is that she and I never got our vaccine. And then

9:13  
one year, I got influenza and told her I was so sick that I was gonna go to the emergency room and just lay down on the cart and she could send patients over there if they thought they were sicker than I  was. So

9:31  
and

9:34  
and I did that day see a child that needed a surgical cut down to establish an IV line. At that time, we didn't have the, what they call IOs where they introduce a needle into the bone and give fluids that so. So I figured I saved that child's life and and Karen did by getting her over to me and and then there was another

10:00  
They're patients because she was dehydrated. And then I saw one other patient who ended up having meningitis and certainly needed to be saving. So, but then the next year,

10:14  
it was time to get the shots again. And my nurse Karen McLaughlin, she said, Are you going to get the flu shot this year? And I said, You bet. She said, I think I will, too. So

10:32  
but, so we had some fun,

10:37  
and a lot of hard work.

10:41  
I

10:43  
used to go to the hospital at seven in the morning and make my hospital rounds and I was in the office by eight. And then

10:53  
if I had to see a post op patient or somebody I didn't see on morning rounds, I go back over the noon hour, and then

11:01  
we usually work till five and then went back in the evening and, and saw post op patients or, or followed our patients that were in labor. So but I, OB and the delivering the babies into the world. That was one of the blessings I had by being a family doc in Alliance. Do you know how many babies you've delivered? Not exactly, but I know is at least 2500. So So I tell people when Alliance is about 7600 people, and I deliver 2500 babies, I tell people that when I walked downtown,

11:48  
I figured that about every third person, I mean, I probably delivered.

11:53  
So I miss miss that. But I

11:58  
have been getting a lot of nice notices or cards from people who

12:06  
I delivered their babies or, or had some special medical problem

12:13  
that they appreciate my presence. So

12:18  
I did. I did before

12:21  
I started at Box Butte General Hospital in 1976. I did practice for

12:29  
about three months in the St. Joseph Hospital

12:35  
at that time, so so I didn't have a lot of

12:40  
time there. But but still remember being there. And looking forward to the new hospital opening. I think it was a good thing, obviously for the community. And do you remember the day it opened? What was it like? Oh, geez.

12:59  
You know, I really don't I was just excited about it being open. And I know that, you know, there are all kinds of festivities, a lot of people passing through and all that, but

13:15  
I don't remember the details. I remember more of the details about,

13:21  
you know, the addition and the

13:25  
new medical center and all that and the festivities with that, but But yeah, I think it's been a good thing for the people Alliance. Yeah, you've seen quite a bit of transition for BBGH. Ah, you've seen it all kind of evolve, right? What does that been like? Oh, my gosh.

13:49  
The,

13:51  
you know, there's been lots of behind the scene things. I've been a part of having been,

14:01  
you know, on the board of directors of the hospital at one time

14:07  
for a number of years.

14:10  
Some of the little arguments that occur between clubs.

14:16  
But

14:20  
coming and going of administrators,

14:24  
and

14:28  
the recruitment of one of the biggest changes I've seen, I guess it'd be the recruitment of specialty providers to

14:38  
box butte general which, even though I think Primary Care and Family Practice is the backbone of the hospital. It's nice for the people in alliance to have specialty people that they could see right here in their home community. And so I think that's been

14:59  
quite a journey.

15:00  
So

15:03  
the expansion of the emergency room

15:07  
you know, I practice 32 years of family practice and then 15 years and the emergency room and then practice

15:20  
here in the hospital clinic for the last year or so, but

15:28  
I had a little private discussion with the new computer and the computer convinced me that it was time for me to do something different.

15:40  
And yeah.

15:42  
But I admire the people that

15:45  
make all that work. But

15:48  
time for me to move on to a new chapter. So yeah. So before we talk about, you know, you're retiring, which is this big thing you've been then serving our community for a long time? What kind of things did you do? At BBGH? Ah, while you were here, because you sold your practice your clinic in 2007, correct? That's correct. Yeah.

16:12  
I sold. Actually, I just, I gave the all the charts and so on to

16:21  
the hospital. I think

16:24  
there were 7000 charts that came over here from my clinic. I think at that time, I think we had 10,000 patients. And

16:36  
so

16:39  
what was your other question? So what kind of once you brought all those over here, what have you been doing all that time?

16:53  
Well, when they brought him over here, I actually

16:57  
and the reason that we closed out Alliance Medical Center was because the hospital had built a brand new clinic, not that ours was that old, but they built a brand new clinic. And then they

17:11  
they enticed most of the physicians that were in my clinic to come to the hospital. And so

17:20  
so

17:24  
you know, I still had a busy practice, but

17:28  
it was hard for me to justify with

17:31  
I was the only one in the clinic man, it was hard for me to justify

17:37  
a lab tag X ray tech receptionist as a transcriptionist and business manager a nurse and so on so so.

17:51  
So I made the decision to close the clinic sold the clinic building to the hospital. And then I moved over here

18:01  
and I was going to work part time in the clinic and part time in the ER but

18:13  
I had

18:15  
still had such a practice following that it was

18:19  
difficult to provide all their needs with my being the only physician

18:25  
had followed them at Alliance Medical Center. So I quit seeing patients in the clinic and just limited my care to the emergency room. That was very

18:39  
rewarding the level of care I saw so many of my patients there they were happy to see you man and

18:48  
they can update me on their families and old times and

18:54  
then I worked there for 15 years

18:59  
for 15 years so

19:04  
so it was pretty hectic the

19:09  
last couple years there was the COVID pandemic

19:15  
I was kind of run scared

19:18  
you know there are certain risk factors for COVID which are age and and asthma and

19:29  
obesity and

19:34  
lot of other factors. So I will fell I was high risk so I was pretty good about gowning up

19:44  
doing the best I could wash my hands and

19:49  
but I feel we did really a good job through the pandemic.

19:56  
We had a good either admitting those who needed to be

20:00  
admitted here for oxygen supplementation, or sending them on to higher centers where they can have higher pulmonary care but but yeah, I was proud of

20:12  
what we did in the ER proud of what we did in the hospital and

20:17  
but I'm glad that the

20:21  
pandemic seems to

20:23  
clared or at least subsided at this time. So who knows what the future.

20:30  
So, moving on to your retirement, what are you planning to do with all your free time now?

20:37  
Well, people used to ask me, they say, Doc, how come you're still working. And

20:44  
I used to say, Well, my cows need to eat. And my dad had always said that, that if I got my medical degree, I could always come back to the ranch and, and nail my diploma off to the side of the barn. So So I guess that's what I did. And

21:06  
in

21:08  
1969, my dad sold his cattle out I bought some of the cattle and then I have increased the size of the herd.

21:19  
Currently, I run about 750 head of cows. And so

21:25  
I'm busy seeing that the fence gets put up because of the snowstorm and the plowing through the fences and

21:35  
so on. So

21:38  
yes, I'm more involved now and the ranch and

21:42  
and the farm and

21:48  
looking forward to some

21:51  
traveling and

21:52  
more time with friends and family.

21:56  
So yeah, that's kind of where I am now.

22:01  
What do you think you're gonna miss most about coming into work at BBGH, every day

22:11  
while I had some tears when I announced to the administrator that I was going to be leaving

22:22  
you know, there's time for all of us to step side or do something different.

22:29  
But

22:31  
you know, for me

22:34  
family practice was very rewarding. And

22:39  
you know, I had a lot a lot of my patients were

22:45  
also my friends and like an extended family to me

22:50  
and so

22:53  
I'm sure that I'll miss that although still living in the community, I'll still see him downtown or whatever. But

23:05  
yeah, so I'll miss

23:07  
a miss that

23:10  
I

23:13  
miss the people at Box Butte General Hospital. You know, I have a lot of dear friends up here.

23:22  
So

23:24  
I'll miss that.

23:29  
And I guess time will tell what else I've asked.

23:34  
I don't miss the 24 hour shifts.

23:39  
That's kind of nice to to be able to sleep in your own bed all night.

23:47  
So, so.

23:51  
So to kind of wrap things up, you've had all this lifetime worth of experience. What would you what advice would you give to this next generation of doctors and practitioners that are going to be coming up? What What would you suggest for them to have a good career and to you know, enjoy their time?

24:11  
Well,

24:14  
as far as enjoying their own time

24:20  
I used to tell people that

24:23  
medicine is a jealous mistress, and

24:29  
it does demand a lot of your time. And

24:33  
I think that I think that the new Mulu among physicians is that they expect more time and and take more time.

24:47  
Part of that is because they can do that because

24:53  
you know, they're in a group practice.

24:56  
Whereas for example, in my case, I started I was in for

25:00  
I have a practice

25:03  
by myself

25:05  
for the first couple years anyhow, and then just Dr. Fairbanks and I for a number of years after that, but

25:14  
I think

25:17  
I think I see the younger providers taking time to do things with their family and, and

25:26  
in,

25:29  
in,

25:31  
in retrospect,

25:33  
I guess I could have said no

25:37  
more often maybe. But if you're running a private practice, you're

25:43  
delivering 2500 Babies

25:46  
going into the office, after morning rounds being in the office by eight, and

25:55  
have a chance to dictate at the end of the day, and

26:00  
it didn't leave a lot of time for for

26:06  
a lot of fancy trips or time off, particularly with the OB where I was in solo practice.

26:16  
You know, most of the women that

26:18  
you follow through their pregnancy wanted you to be there at the time of their delivery. And I understand that. And I tried to make that happen.

26:29  
So

26:31  
but

26:33  
so

26:36  
yeah, so my advice to the providers would be, work hard and play hard. And I'm seeing them do that. And I respect that. And so

26:51  
Well, thank you for joining us and sharing all of your amazing experiences. We really appreciate it. I wish you the best of luck and thank you so much for joining us.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai