by Bea Peterson
Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) recently announced it will honor two distinguished individuals from the greater Bennington area at its annual Harvest Ball on Saturday, September 7. The Health System will recognize longtime Hoosick Falls physician Dr. Philip Martinez with the SVHC 2013 Health Care Leadership Award. [private]At the same event, the Health System also will recognize Bennington businessman, philanthropist, and entrepreneur Norman Greenberg and the Greenberg family with the SVHC 2013 Distinguished Community Service Award. “This year’s recipients are inextricably linked with the communities in which they live,” said Thomas Dee, President and CEO of Southwestern Vermont Health Care. “Dr. Martinez’s name is synonymous with outstanding medical care and a deep, abiding commitment to the community of Hoosick Falls. For many years Dr. Philip Martinez was health care in Hoosick Falls,” said Dee.
Dr. Martinez served two years in the U.S. Army at the close of World War II. He took advantage of the GI Bill noting, “It paid for my three years at St. Lawrence University.” He attended medical school in Syracuse, completed a rotating internship at Albany Medical Center and a surgical residency in Syracuse. While in Syracuse he met his future wife Gloria on a double date. They were married in 1956. Around that time he met a medical student who told him about a Dr. Stacey in Hoosick Falls who was going back into the Army. “I’d never heard of Hoosick Falls,” he said. He and Gloria came to Hoosick Falls and liked it. They purchased the Stacy house on Abbott Street. Dr. Martinez set up practice in the Village and joined the medical staff at Putnam Memorial Hospital so he could work with Dr. Moskowitz in Bennington. Gloria, a registered nurse, became his office assistant. Daughter Maureen interjected that her mom also did the bookkeeping after hours. And there was always plenty of work to keep the equipment up. “We had to sterilize everything back then,” said Gloria. “We didn’t have disposable equipment.”
Some of the four physicians in town had been in practice for 30 or 40 years. “They were all very nice,” Dr. Martinez recalled. So, there was plenty of room for a new doctor. In 1961 the couple purchased the old Assembly of God Church across the street from their first home. They still live there today. “We had three children in the first house and three more after we moved here,” said Gloria. Dr. Martinez turned the barn behind the house into his office. His son Marcus practices there today. The couple’s six children are Maureen, Denise, Michelle, Jeffrey, James and Marcus. They also have three granddaughters and one grandson.
The couple said they never had office hours. They opened at seven in the morning and stayed until they had seen all the patients that appeared that day. Sometimes that would be to 10 or 11 at night. “And the pharmacists at Thorpe’s, Rocky’s and McCann would stay open until all hours so my patients could pick up their medicines,” said the Doctor. Sometimes they would have Saturday hours by appointment. “But if people saw cars in the parking lot, they just came in,” said Gloria.
The couple laughed as they described the hectic years of raising the children and phones ringing day and night for emergencies. “He made house calls, of course,” said Gloria. “It was nothing for someone to call me at midnight to let me know the doctor had just left one house and was on his way to another.” And, most times, everyone knew where to find the doctor. On the other hand, the doctor knew where to find the key people he often needed as he knew all their favorite hangouts. Maureen said it was nothing for the family to be eating supper and there would be a knock on the door with someone all bloody needing stitches standing there. She recalls another time when the family was out to dinner and the doctor got a call to deliver a baby. “He took the car, and off he went. We had to call someone to come and get the seven of us and take us home!” There were Christmases, too, when the kids had to wait until dad got home to open their presents.
4,800 Babies
Dr. Martinez retired in 1999 after practicing medicine in Hoosick Falls for 43 years. “I went to both hospitals,” he said. Those were Mary McClellan in Cambridge, which no longer exists, and Putnam, later Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, in Bennington. “Some people would only go to one hospital and not the other,” he said. “I treated them where they wanted to be.” He also delivered babies at those hospitals and elsewhere. It is estimated that during his career he delivered 4,800 babies. That’s equivalent to about two thirds of the population of the Town and Village. Of course that meant being out all hours of the day and night.
Family Time
Maureen recalls that their parents were always there when the kids played sports or participated in other events. And vacation time was always special. “Mom always had a nine passenger station wagon,” she said, perfect for a family getaway. “We always had one week with the kids, and then I had one week with my wife,” said Dr. Martinez.
For nearly 50 years Dr. Martinez was the school physician. That’s a good many physicals and football games. “I set a lot of bones at those games,” he said. He also noted that in all those years as school physician he never got a raise!
In his retirement Dr. Martinez continues work on his coin collection. He’s an avid reader, plays a little golf and walks through the Village almost every day. In the winter he walks in the Armory. On Sundays he delivers papers to the Health Center.
Gloria now works in her son’s medical office. She’s been bowling for 47 years, and she continues to do so. “She has the highest team average,” said her husband proudly.
Reminiscing about those years the couple agreed it was a lot of work – but it was a lot of fun.
“Our health system owes a great deal to Dr. Martinez,” said SVHC President and CEO Dee. “He served as President and Vice President of the medical staff, presided as Chairman of several medical staff committees, helped start our medical library and served as our chief of Staff for six years. He also served on our Board of Trustees. The community, however, knows him better as the doctor who helped organize the Hoosick Falls Rescue Squad and led the Town’s Little League. Moreover, generations of children knew him as the physician for Hoosick Falls Central School.”
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