Dr. Macy to mark 40 years in medical practice on Tuesday

Sunday, June 8, 2014
Dr. Warren Macy, who celebrates his 40th year of family medical practice Tuesday, June 10, confers with office nurse Kim Parrish in one of the exam rooms at his Greencastle office on Medic Way.

With a fine sense of humor and a great outlook on life, Greencastle physician Dr. Warren Macy continues to practice, practice, practice.

Yet many of his contemporaries have moved on to retirement or other business pursuits. The building that housed his first office is now an apartment complex. Even the hospital where he delivered his first Putnam County baby -- as well as the last one ever at the facility -- has become residential space.

But Dr. Macy is still working like he always has, seeing nearly 30 patients a day and putting off any talk of retirement. That's at least until Adam Amos, a Putnam County product currently doing his family practice residence at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, arrives in July 2015.

"There hasn't been a day the last 10 years when I haven't been asked if I was retiring," the 67-year-old Macy said with a smile as he steered the conversation away from that topic to changes he's seen since June 10, 1974.

"The thing that makes me feel old," he said, "is that back when I first started, my office call cost $8."

A doctor visit is many times that today, even in these so-called "Obamacare" times.

"Actually, I do not even know how much they are," Dr. Macy admitted. "Back then there was one level. Now there are five levels for established patients and five for new patients and they are all too expensive."

Another reminder of how times have changed is that total cost for obstetrics care -- back when Macy first started by sharing an office at 600 N. Arlington St. with Dr. Thomas Black -- was $350.

"That was for all the visits, the delivery and follow-up care afterward," Macy elaborated.

Now $350 might be considered a downpayment.

But it's about much more than the money for Dr. Macy, who moved into his Medic Way office soon after the new Putnam County Hospital opened off U.S. 231 in 1979.

"Haggerty, Larkin and I built that building," he said, mentioning Dr. Fred Haggerty, now living in Brazil, and Dr. Gregory Larkin, who first left the practice to join Eli Lilly Co. and then became state health commissioner.

"Larkin got wise and went to Lilly and I stayed here," Macy grinned, knowing he'd have had it no other way.

Other doctors came and went, notably Jack Nonweiler, Mark Conway, Mark Fisher and even Steve Kissel, who was in an adjoining office at one time.

Now it's Dr. Macy and three nurse practitioners. And like Putnam County Hospital itself, he no longer pursues obstetrics care.

Over the years Dr. Macy has delivered "right at 1,900" babies, including some 300 while doing his rotating internship at Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis.

"I delivered the last baby in the old (Putnam County) hospital and the first one in the new hospital," the veteran doctor noted, adding that he "started delivering people I delivered, going into a second generation."

Born and raised in Berne in Adams County, Macy went to Indiana University for both his undergraduate work and med school. And it was meeting Dr. Black in medical school that steered Macy toward Greencastle.

"He was moonlighting out here," Dr. Macy said, "and he knew that two doctors were retiring and there were open practices, so we decided to come here, but went our separate ways after that."

Over the past 40 years, Dr. Macy says changes in the volume of paperwork and "hassles by insurance companies" have stood out.

"The people are still the same," he reasoned. "The patients just have gotten older. And as you grow older, your practice grows older."

And with that, he said, maladies like "bad arthritis and diabetes" become the problem de jour.

Meanwhile, deliveries tend to stand out the most as Dr. Macy reminisces.

During the Blizzard of 1978, he used his four-wheel-drive truck to shuttle people back and forth to the hospital, also remembering that one delivery resulted from a Belle Union woman being brought to the hospital in a snowplow to have her baby.

"And of all the babies I have ever delivered, the only one born with its intestines outside the body came during the blizzard."

Yet one of Macy's more interesting deliveries came when a woman went into labor in an Owen County campground and showed up at Putnam County Hospital with no record of a personal physician, claiming it was her first baby.

It was way too soon for a first child to arrive, Dr. Macy reasoned, and a couple days after he delivered the baby, he was proven right.

The woman and her husband were bank robbers on the run from Michigan. It wasn't her first child, and the authorities arrested the couple.

Dr. Macy figured that was one delivery he was never getting paid for. But a wise office manager, using that logic that the couple had been residing in Owen County at the time of the birth, sent a bill to the Owen County trustee, who paid it without complaint.

That brought a laugh and a smile from Dr. Macy, now in full nostalgia mode.

What about some of the funnier situations he's encountered over the years?

"Those are the ones you can't talk about," he said, undoubtedly wary not only of discretion but doctor-patient confidentiality.

"After 40 years, I still truly enjoy practicing medicine -- the people more than the paperwork," Macy said. "After my quadruple coronary bypass surgery in 2009, I am still going strong, seeing nearly 30 patients a day."

Dr. Macy said his reminiscence wouldn't be complete without "mentioning my wonderful staff."

"With very minimal turnover," he said, "we have worked together for a great portion of my time in Greencastle."

While he has practiced medicine for 40 years, wife Connie, a registered nurse, has been a fixture at the Johnson-Nichols Clinic for 27 years.

They have thee children, including daughter Katherine, who has gone into medicine and is a pediatric anesthesiologist at Riley Hospital for Children at Indianapolis.

Sons Matthew and Nathan, meanwhile, live and work in St. Joseph's, Mich., and Chicago, respectively.

When retirement does come for Dr. Macy, he says he'll have more time to "play with my antiques" (like the brass Prevo Store cash register that is on loan to the Putnam County Museum), donate more time to the museum and visit Sanibel Island more often.

And quite possibly he will even pursue a golf game that "has been given up for some time."

That's assuming there's enough time for practice, practice and more practice.

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  • My wife and I have been with Dr. Larkin and then Dr. Macy when each started practicing medicine in Greencastle 40 years ago.

    Dr. Macy is a true to the heart "people person". Thanks for your service to the people of Putnam County. Enjoy and embrace your future.

    -- Posted by Lookout on Mon, Jun 9, 2014, at 8:21 AM
  • Dr. Macy remains the excellent example of a community family doctor: true expertise, availability, continuity, practical, honest and most of all, compassionate caring.

    His contribution to the advancement of many Greencastle community's projects and programs also demonstrates his total commitment to his friends and patients.

    His laser wit as well as spot on perceptions have made me, his former practice partner, a life long admirer. Greg Larkin MD (Greencastle practice: 1975-1986)

    -- Posted by gnlarkin on Mon, Jun 9, 2014, at 10:45 AM
  • He was a Big part of my childhood, fortunately and unfortunately... and his family will always be special to me. So sad that you can no longer have your child in Putnam County.

    -- Posted by lhenry on Mon, Jun 9, 2014, at 2:17 PM
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