Yoakum physician named
Country Doctor of the Year

TAFP life member David Watson, M.D., of Yoakum, has been named the 2008 Country Doctor of the Year. Sponsored by Staff Care, the largest physician staffing service in the country, the annual award is presented to a primary care physician who best exemplifies the spirit, skill and dedication of rural physicians.

At 78, Watson certainly typifies this spirit. He has been practicing in Yoakum since 1958—current population 6,000—when he charged patients $3 for an office visit and $5 for a house call. He would also accept a pie, the haunch of a deer, a bushel of pecans or other payment in kind for his services, according to a press release from Staff Care. Watson moved to Yoakum directly after medical school at Baylor College of Medicine and, after 50 years, is still treating patients at the Yoakum Medical Clinic, the local hospital and nursing home, the Bluebonnet Youth Ranch, and through house calls.

“Most specialists aren’t going to come to a rural community, so if you don’t have a family physician or internist, the patients have to go out of town for care,” Watson says, speaking about the important role family physicians play, especially in rural areas. “When they go out of town, they also tend to shop in these other towns, which takes even more money out of the community.”

“Country doctors like Dr. Watson are the glue that keeps small towns together,” Staff Care President Tim Boes said in the release. “They are vital to patient care, and by keeping local hospitals open they also help ensure the economic viability and sometimes the very survival of their communities. Country doctors are a resource rural America literally cannot afford to do without.”

As the 2008 Country Doctor of the Year, Watson received a two-week vacation as Staff Care provided a temporary physician to fill in for him at no charge. He also received a plaque featuring a country doctor making his rounds on a horse and buggy, an engraved stethoscope and a monogrammed lab coat.