Five Generations of Care Over Four Decades
In honor of Dr. Janice Luth’s upcoming retirement from CMG Village, we asked her to share with us how she ended up in the field of medicine along with some of her favorite anecdotes from her 42 years of practice.
No one in our immediate family was involved in healthcare, but my mom was known as “the bird lady” in our suburban neighborhood because all the kids would bring her the injured birds, squirrels and chipmunks that were found in the woods near our house. She would try valiantly to nurse them back to health, but I don’t think we had many successes.
However, I think those lessons in compassion stuck with me all my life, and I think that’s where my interest in healing probably started! When I was around 12 years old, my beloved grandfather developed cancer, and one of his doctors was a woman (which was very rare in those days), so I knew it was possible for girls to grow up to be doctors.
He passed away when I was 16, and that same year I really started thinking about what my calling in life would be. Should I become a writer, a teacher, a mathematician or a lawyer? I knew I had an aptitude for science, and as I was mulling over careers in scientific fields, I thought maybe I could be a doctor, and I knew immediately, like a bolt of lightning, that that was the right choice for me.
From that day forward, my whole life was geared toward becoming a physician. I chose the University of Virginia for college because their graduates had the highest chance of being accepted to medical school. Once I got into school (once again at UVA), I found that I just loved every aspect of medicine–from pediatrics to orthopedics–which made becoming a family physician a no-brainer!
I first came to Bedford Memorial Hospital in 1980, working on weekends in the emergency room while I was completing my residency training in Roanoke. One of my preceptors at the residency was Dr. Dave Brechtelsbauer whose practice was in Moneta. When his partner in the practice decided to move on, he needed a replacement, and I came in as a temporary doctor while my husband was finishing his PhD at Virginia Tech.
Needless to say, I was captivated by the rural lifestyle, the hospitality of the community, and the sense that I was really needed, and within a few months, that temporary job became my life’s work. I never considered any other location or position. I also fell in love with Bedford because I could deliver babies, care for heart attacks, sew up chainsaw wounds, visit nursing homes, and care for children and adults in the office–sometimes all in the same day!
Our practice became a part of Centra in 2009 when the stresses of electronic records and billing became too much for us to handle as an independent group, and we have been very grateful that Centra took over those management burdens!
My favorite memories are all about my patients which makes it hard to choose just one. However, one of the most gratifying was finally delivering a squalling baby after 23 hours of labor. Others that rank among my favorites include providing care to two young children who are the fifth generation from their family that I’ve cared for and seeing an elderly patient on his 90th birthday and asking him jokingly, “so how old are you today?” and his answer with a twinkle in his eye being, “not a day over 79!”
My sister, Dr. Kathryn Sparhawk, and I once bartered to provide pregnancy and delivery care for a Mennonite patient in exchange for two full-sized quilts that she made for us as payment for her care!
Over the years, I have become a trusted part of so many families’ lives, and the relationships that I’ve built remain, even now that my doctoring years are coming to a close. There is almost never a time that I go to the grocery store or Walmart that someone doesn’t say hello or tell me I cared for their grandmother or delivered their son who’s now in his 30s. It has truly been an honor and a privilege to care for so many!