Reception honors Dr. Meyer
Dr. Jerold Meyer was honored at a retirement reception hosted by Interim HealthCare Hospice on Thursday evening, May 25 at the Lock Landing in the Roscoe Village Visitor Center. Conversing with Dr. Jerold Meyer is: left, Natalie Buller, who is serving an internship with The Salo Organization and Sue Buller, the Vice-President of Business Development for The Salo Organization, the company that owns Interim. Mark Fortune | Beacon
COSHOCTON – Dr. Jerold Meyer, who has been an integral part of the Coshocton medical and hospice community for many years, is retiring and his retirement was honored with a reception hosted by Interim HealthCare Hospice at the Lock Landing in the Roscoe Village Visitor Center on Thursday evening, May 25.
Dr. Meyer was greeted by Interim employees and friends honoring his 37 years of service to the community.
Marge Donley, who is the Hospice Administrator for Interim HealthCare Hospice, said, “I’ve known Dr. Meyer and had the pleasure of working with him for many, many years. The service that he has provided for Coshocton and Interim is invaluable. We owe him a great deal of gratitude for what he has done for us. He has been our medical director since the inception of our hospice which was started in 2014 and he has been integral in our growth. He is a wonderful human being. He truly is a wonderful human being. He cares about the elderly and he does the right thing all the time.”
Dr. Meyer said, “I came to the community in 1980. I came here with the National Health Service Corps. That was an organization that the federal government came up with to place primary care physicians in rural areas. They paid for three years of my medical school so I owed them three years. Other physicians came to the community through that program as well; Dr. Gwinn, Dr. Steven Dubay, several other ones.”
“Dr. Gwinn and I stayed after our obligation was completed. Initially we were old time family doctors, we did obstetrics, we did office surgery, we took care of medical problems, and we did some orthopedics, the whole gamut. As things have evolved over the years, most family physicians have become what we call primary care physicians and they don’t do a lot of surgery or OB or those kinds of things.”
“Now we’re mostly medical doctors and most family doctors also see pediatric patients.”
“I’ve enjoyed the people, both the staff that I’ve worked with and the patients. You develop many friendships over the years. When I started out, many of my patients were in there 50s or 60s and I’ve seen most of them in their 80s, 90s and passing away.”
“A lot of the staff that I’m working with now, I actually delivered. They started off as children or infants and I’ve seen them grow over the years. Now I’ve enjoyed working with them as adults.”
“My best memories were in obstetrics and the happiness that children brought to families and seeing the birth of new babies. That was a happy time.”
“We’ve seen a lot of developments in heart disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer treatments are much more effective than they used to be. Despite the whole concern about opioid addiction we’ve seen a lot of developments in pain control and hospice to help make the end of life more tolerable to patients and families.”
Dr. Meyer worked for Hospice Services of Coshocton County prior to his work with Interim for the past three and a half years and has devoted many years to hospice care.
When asked what his plans are for the future, Dr. Meyer, who was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio and grew up in Cleveland, said, “I have about a 30 year list of things that haven’t gotten done. I need to take some more time to visit family, working in my garden and my orchard. I like to spend time hiking and spend time in the woods, do a little travelling.”
Dr. Meyer had this advice for young people that are interested in the medical field, “Study as hard as you can, take a lot of science courses. You’re still going to need those even though we’re in the information age, study computers and information technology, above all study the sciences, chemistry, biology and get a good base so you can go into medicine if that is your desire.”
Category: Business
