KELLY PRICE

Dr. Smith (r), receives the Physician of the Year Award from Dr. Scott Holder, 2010 TNAFP president, at the recent convention.

A History of Good Medicine

When Thomas Smith’s grandfather, a part-time farmer and school teacher with a degree in anatomy, opened a free medical clinic in Franklin County, Tenn. in the early 1900s, he couldn’t have foreseen that members of his family would still be taking care of their neighbors more than a century and three generations later.

Smith remembers the example set by his physician father who made house calls on sick patients throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, and his uncle, also a physician, who built Winchester’s original hospital.

Recently named the 2010 “Family Physician of the Year” by the Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians (TNAFP), Smith continues the family tradition, having served the families of Winchester and Franklin County as a solo practitioner for more than 30 years.

In 2009, following in a long history of family service to the community, he founded “Volunteers in Medicine in Southern Tennessee,” a free medical clinic in Franklin County for citizens who can’t afford medical care. He was also instrumental in establishing the local PEN Foundation that works with area schools by giving citizens an avenue to make positive contributions to local students through tutoring and other volunteer help.

Smith also carries on the family legacy, a passion for quality medical care, by mentoring hundreds of medical students as a preceptor during their academic studies.

He marched down the streets of neighboring Sewanee as a student at the Sewanee Military Academy and came back to attend and graduate from the University of the South with an undergraduate degree in chemistry and an achievement award in organic chemistry. He later received a master’s degree in chemistry from Middle Tennessee State University.

During his freshman year of college, he left the mountain long enough to meet his future wife, Suzy, now a retired librarian, who was at Vanderbilt, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. They married in New Orleans 40 years ago and have three children. Son Tommy is a commercial artist in Knoxville; daughter Lexie helps run the Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Tennessee Clinic; and daughter Teddy Anne runs her husband’s contracting paint business and raises the Smith’s grandsons, ages 7 and 3.

Smith continued his academic career receiving his medical degree from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and served an internship and residency in the Department of Family Medicine at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. The recipient of the J. P. Quigley Research Award at the U.T. Medical School, Smith served as chief resident in the Department of Family Medicine.

Always active in his home community, he has served as president of the Franklin County Medical Association, as well as president of the Franklin County Chapter of the American Cancer Society. As a past president of TNAFP, Smith has also provided input on the practice of family medicine in Tennessee.

Although his work on behalf of the association has taken him across the state, his heart has always been at home. Not surprisingly, since his ties to the area are so long and deep, he is active in the Franklin County Historical Society. In recognition of all his work, he was named Outstanding Citizen for the Year for Franklin County in 1996.

Smith is board certified in geriatrics with added qualifications. He has been the medical director for Mountainview Rehabilitation and Nursing Home since 1996. His work there has convinced him that people do not want an intermediary between them and their healthcare provider.

“I try to cut down barriers between myself and my patients, and I find that patients respect my time,” he observed.

Looking down the road, Smith considers the possibility of change. “After years as a solo practitioner, I may consider the options of looking for new partners or work with the hospital,” he said.

The local hospital, Southern Tennessee Medical Center, along with Emerald Hodgins Healthcare Center in Sewanee, are both part of the LifePoint Hospitals system. “Our local hospital is bucking the trend for small hospitals — last year it grew by 12 percent,” he noted.

As he looks to the broader future of healthcare, especially in rural settings, Smith worries that “we will run into a shortage of family practice physicians and those in subspecialties because there will be too much disparity between rising expenses in the increasingly technical aspects of care and compensation.”

As for the universal healthcare bill passed by Congress last spring, Smith said, “Obviously, the devil is in the details. While the intent is noble because of the need for universal coverage, the details of how to allocate it and pay for it will be the problem.”

He mentioned an article he recently read in the Yale School of Medicine newsletter about a vaccine for diabetes that could be made universally available.

“But at what cost?” he mused. “We know that diabetes is already preventable by controlling blood pressure and blood sugar, adding exercise and sticking to a healthy food plan, all of which would result in a much healthier population without the expense of a universal vaccine.

“The dichotomy of the public perspective is that people want all the bells and whistles without appreciating some of the tools we already have,” he wisely observed.