Chuckatuck marks doctor’s retirement

Published 10:00 pm Monday, October 10, 2011

Dr. Philip Thomas, center, celebrates his retirement with his youngest son, Steve, left, and former patient Aleck Winslow, right, at a community party for Thomas Sunday at the Chuckatuck Volunteer Fire Department. Many of his former patients, colleagues, employees and other community members came to the party to wish Thomas well.

From the start of his career in Chuckatuck, Dr. Philip Thomas has a lasting impression on resident Aleck Winslow.

Winslow was a young man when he had one of his first encounters with Thomas after the doctor was called to help an injured teenage boy who was trapped in the water in a nearby lake.

The boy had been mowing the grass around the lake when his tractor toppled over and fell into the water, taking him with it.

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Winslow said Thomas hurried to the scene, and even though he couldn’t do anything until a crane arrived to lift the tractor, Thomas didn’t leave the boy.

“Dr. Thomas stayed right there with him the whole time,” Winslow said.

Almost 60 years later, Winslow still reveres Thomas, who is now 90, and he was one of several people who celebrated the doctor’s retirement at a community party Sunday at the Chuckatuck Volunteer Fire Department.

Kitty Martin, who owns the salon next door to Thomas’s former office on Kings Highway, coordinated the party.

“I just thought he was well-deserving of it,” she said. “He’s been a good friend to me.”

Thomas’ patients, nurses who had worked for him, former colleagues and other community members attended the party to congratulate him on 60 years of practicing medicine.

The doctor sat in a director’s chair while guests waited in line to wish him the best.

After retiring officially on Aug. 1, Thomas said jokingly, he is missing working “like a hole in the head,” and he has been spending his time with friends and collecting stamps and coins.

He said he was amazed and touched to see how many people journeyed out to see him.

Former nurse Celia Coughlin came from Smithfield to see the doctor she worked for in 1961.

“He was great to work for,” she said. “He loved what he was doing.”

While she was working for him, Coughlin said, she remembered his No.-1 rule was that no one was allowed to touch his desk.

“He had it piled, but he knew where everything was,” she said. “If anyone messed with it, he’d know it.”

Even though she only worked for him for a year, Coughlin said, she was close to Thomas in other ways.

As a teenager, she babysat his children, and after she had her own children, Coughlin and Thomas gave each other’s children their immunizations.

Thomas even cared for her grandmother in her final days.

“I remember him using a coat rack to hold IV fluids, and he would sit with her until all the fluids were gone,” Coughlin said. “I thought that was the most caring thing.”

Like Coughlin, Lucy Uzzle Gray has known Thomas for most of her life.

Her first appointment with him was 49 years ago to deliver her fourth child, and she hasn’t seen another doctor since.

“I hated to see him retire, and I’m still looking for a doctor,” she said. “If I could keep him, I would. He’s a great doctor.”

Gray said she loved the way he joked with her at every visit.

“Every time we’d go, we’d have something to laugh about,” she said. “When he looked at me and didn’t laugh, I’d know it was serious.”

Janet Faye Lawrence-Pennix hasn’t been Thomas’s patient for as long as Gray, but she’s just as attached to him.

“He’s been a good doctor,” she said. “That was the hardest part of my life — finding a new doctor. I love Dr. Thomas.”

Lawrence-Pennix added Thomas was so caring that he once made time for her when she arrived on the wrong day for her appointment.

Similarly, Bill and Sarah Willman, who affectionately call him Dr. T, said Thomas always had time for his patients.

Sarah Willman said you could call him without any notice for an appointment, and he’s see you.

“He’d just say, ‘Come on down,’” she said. “He’d make time for you.”

Katherine Youngk, one of Thomas’ daughters who worked at his office for several years, said it warmed her heart to see all of the people who came to honor her father.

“He just said he was happy to be recognized,” she said. “It’s so nice. I feel like he served his community well.”