The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Doctors selected as parade grand marshals




Physicians who have served Letcher County for 15 or more years as health care providers are grand marshals of the Mountain Heritage Festival Parade. Twenty doctors and 15 late doctors will be recognized during the pre-parade program at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, in front of the Letcher County Courthouse.

The grand marshals are:

• Dr. Antonio M. Abalos, a member of the American Board of Pathology, completed medical school at Far Eastern University- Dr Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation Institute of Medicine in Quezon City, Philippines. Abalos completed an internship at St. Thomas Hospital and residency at St. Peter Medical Center. He began working for Whitesburg Appalachian Regional Hospital in 1976 and retired in 2010 with 34 years of service.

• Dr. Mahmood Alam is a certified pulmonologist with more than 15 years of experience in pulmonary treatment for coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. Alam is the director of Mountain Comprehensive Health Cooperation’s Respiratory Clinics of Eastern Kentucky. He completed medical school at Dow Medical College/Karachi University in Pakistan. He completed residency at St. Vincent’s’ Medical Center of Richmond and a fellowship at Elmhurst Hospital Center, University of Kentucky.

• Dr. Brenda Baker, a board certified family physician in Neon, has been practicing medicine for 25 years. Baker attended college at Pikeville and graduated in 1990 with honors from Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. She and her husband Allen moved to Neon after she completed her residency. Baker started her practice in Neon in 1993. The Bakers’ son, Matthew, is attending medical school and plans to practice in Letcher County. They have another son, Max.

• Dr. Nathan Wade Baker, a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist, obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Kentucky. Upon completion of a fouryear residency in OBGYN through UK, Baker returned to his hometown of Whitesburg in 1992 to practice at Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation. Baker and his wife, Tricia Baker, have two children, Christian and Savannah Lynn.

• Dr Marlene Bielecki began working at the MCHC Leatherwood / Blackey Clinic in 1984 and transferred Whitesburg clinic in the early ‘90s. Bielecki left MCHC in 1992 to work with a group practice in Denton, Md. She returned to Letcher County in October 1994 as a fulltime family practice physician at MCHC. Bielecki retired in July, having treated patients for 31 years at MCHC. She lives on Solomon with her husband, Chuck Conatser.

• Dr. Van S. Breeding, a 1980 graduate of Whitesburg High School, attended college and medical school at the University of Kentucky. He then returned to Letcher County to practice medicine at MCHC. Breeding is a longtime member of the Isom Presbyterian Church, where he and his wife, Pauletta, are youth leaders. The Breedings have three daughters. Vannah attends Alice Lloyd College, Cassidy is a freshman at the University of Kentucky and Kennedy is a freshman at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.

• Dr. Kathleen A. Caizzi was born and reared in the New England area and moved to Letcher County in 1979. She retired in 2011, having worked 32 years in health care. As an advocate of domestic violence awareness, Caizzi helped form the Letcher County Domestic Violence Council and establish the Esta Craft Conway Center for Families and Children. She serves on the Letcher County Education Foundation Board and assisted in obtaining funding for the construction of Letcher County Central High School.

• Dr. George Caudill graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in 1976 and served his family practice residency training at the UK Hospital. Caudill established his practice in 1977 in Isom and now practices at his clinic in Redfox.

• Dr. P.S. Chandrashekar was the only cardiologist when he moved to Whitesburg in 1994. He had clinics in Pikeville, Harlan, Jenkins, Hazard and Hindman. He and his wife, Kanthi, have three children, Jahnavi, Pranav and Nikhitha. All three children have followed in his footsteps and are doctors. Chandrashekar wants them to come back to this area and continue to help and serve smaller communities. He is an advocate of awareness of domestic violence, breast cancer and heart disease.

• Dr. Bill Martin Collins has owned a private medical practice in downtown Whitesburg for nearly 29 years. After completing an internal medicine residency through the University of Louisville in 1986, Collins moved back to Letcher County. At the age of 30, Collins purchased the KYVA Motor Company showroom and garage and turned it into KYVA Medical Plaza. Collins is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. The son of the late Bill and Corsie Collins, he was born at the Whitesburg hospital in 1956. Collins, who grew up in the Lower Bottom neighborhood in Whitesburg, was graduated from Whitesburg High School and Duke University. Collins is an elder of Graham Memorial Presbyterian Church in Whitesburg. He is also a member of the Whitesburg Rotary Club. Collins is chairman of the board of directors of the Letcher County Health Department. He serves on the board of the Kentucky River District Health Department. Collins resides in Whitesburg with his wife, Barb.

• Dr. Ricky Collins is a graduate of Whitesburg High School and Morehead State University. He completed medical school at the American University of the Caribbean and began his practice in 1992. His dream was to always come back to his hometown, practice medicine and follow in the footsteps of his uncle, Dr. Dow Collins, in serving his community.

• Dr. Katherine “Kitty” Gish has cared for patients in Letcher County for the last 21 years. Gish was born at the Whitesburg hospital in 1964, a daughter of the late Tom and Pat Gish. She is an alumna of Whitesburg High School Class of 1982 and was graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1986. In 1991, Gish was graduated from Harvard Medical School. After completing her family medicine residency through University of North Carolina–Asheville in 1994, Gish moved back to Letcher County and began her career as a primary care physician at Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation. Since September 1998, Gish has held a family practice position at Whitesburg Appalachian Regional Hospital, where she has served as medical director of the Whitesburg ARH Clinic for two years. Gish is board certified in family practice by the American Board of Family Medicine. She is a board member of the Letcher County Health Department Board of Directors. She has been married to Doug Raleigh for 24 years. Their 21-year-old son, Drew, is a junior at Transylvania University in Lexington and their daughter, Meg, 19, is a sophomore at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn.

• Dr. Kevin Matthew Gooch, a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, completed his residency at the UK Chandler Medical Center. He is a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine. He began working at Whitesburg ARH in 1999.

• Dr. Salem Hanna was graduated from the University of Damascus – Faculty of Medicine, Damascus, Syria in 1987 and has been practicing medicine for more than 28 years. He works in Whitesburg at MCHC and specializes in internal medicine and family medicine.

• Dr. Shane McDougal is a graduate of Whitesburg High School, Alice Lloyd College and the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He attended residency at East Tennessee State University Family Physicians of Bristol. He is practicing at Mountain Instant Care. He and his wife, Amy, have two daughters, Gracie and Abigail.

• Dr. Vahid Mehrpouyan, who has lived in Letcher County since 1999, has practiced pediatrics medicine at Whitesburg ARH for 15 years. Mehrpouyan is a 1984 graduate of Shahid Beheshti University, Fac Medical in Teheran, Iran. Dr. Mehrpouyan completed his residency at the University of Mississippi School of Pediatrics Medicine.

• Dr. John Pellegrini is a 1972 graduate of Harvard Medical School. He completed residency at Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital in 1978. Pellegrini came to the Jenkins Hospital in October 1978. In 1979, he worked as medical director at MCHC with Lois Baker and Carl Banks. Pellegrini started his private practice in 1980 and started the Whitesburg Evening Clinic. He has had many tours of duty as chief of surgery at Whitesburg ARH and at various times has worked at Wise ARH, Norton Community Hospital, Hazard ARH and Jackson Medical Center. He has been enjoying semi-retirement since October 2013.

• Dr. Chalapathi Rao was graduated from Andhra Med College in India in 1960. He served his residency in pediatrics at the Worcester City Hospital from 1975 to 1978. Rao practiced as a pediatrician at the Daniel Boone Clinic in Whitesburg. He began practice here in 1978 and retired in 2013, having practiced for 35 years. Rao has moved to California to be closer to his sons.

• Dr. Sunil Roy attended medical school at Calcutta University Medical College. He is certified by the American Board of Surgery, having completed residency training through the Internship Hospital at the Harlem Hospital Center, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and Fellowship Hospital, Harlem Hospital Center. He and his wife, Irene, lived in Whitesburg many years and in his retirement have moved to Scotland to be closer to their daughter and granddaughter.

• Dr. Abubakar Tidal attended the University of Santo Tomas Medical School in Manila, Philippines. He completed residency at New Jersey Medical School, Good Samaritan Hospital and Fellowship at New Jersey Medical School. When martial law was declared in the Philippines in 1971, Tidal and family moved to the United States and became naturalized citizens in 1984. Tidal began working at Whitesburg ARH in 1978 as an internist and also serves as the chief of staff at Letcher Manor nursing home. Tidal is retired. Dr. and Lina Tidal and daughter, Stephanie, enjoy visiting with their daughter, Zooey Tidal Jones, and son Junior in New York and Diana in Louisville.

The Mountain Heritage Festival Committee received nominations for the following physicians who are deceased.

• Dr. Roscoe Jacob Acker came to Letcher County as a young physician in the 1900s practicing in the coal fields when the United Mine Workers offered young physicians as much as $30,000 a year. He was born in Boston, Mass., and received his medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons there. He was for several years the only physician in Fleming- Neon. Acker continued to work into his 70s. He cared for patients regardless of their ability to pay. Acker died at the age of 92.

• Dr. Lundy Adams was a general practitioner serving the Blackey and Whitesburg areas. He was a member of the Letcher County Board of Education. He died in May 1995.

• Dr. Vincent Arroz was a native of the Philippines and a well-liked general surgeon at the Whitesburg Appalachian Regional Hospital. During his 44 years of practice, Dr. Arroz treated generations of families with medical and surgical care. Arroz came to Letcher County in July 1970. He began his Letcher County medical practice with Daniel Boone Clinic. From 1985 to 2003 he had a private practice located on campus of Whitesburg ARH. In 2003, he joined the Whitesburg ARH clinic and was there until the time of his death in 2014. He was a 1958 graduate of the University of Santo Thomas Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, which was founded in 1871 in the Philippines. Arroz was married to Shirley Arroz and they have three children.

• Dr. Bert C. Bach came to Letcher County in 1913, made his home in Whitesburg and practiced his profession. In that same year, he became a member of the Graham Memorial Presbyterian Church, where he was a deacon and an elder. He also served in the office of Mayor of Whitesburg. Dr. Bach was born in Breathitt County and was graduated from the medical college at the University of Louisville in 1910. In 1913, he moved to Whitesburg where he practiced medicine for 58 years until his retirement in 1970. He died at the age of 91 in 1973.

• Dr. Monroe Bentley was born in 1876, made house calls up and down creeks and hollows by horseback. He died in 1929 from pneumonia. He was exposed to extreme cold weather while riding horseback on a house call to deliver a baby.

• Dr. D.V. Bentley, of Neon, also made many house calls on horseback in the 1920s. He later drove a car to make house calls. He died in a car accident on Highway 15 on his way home from a long overnight baby delivery.

• Dr. Randall Dow Collins, the first public health officer in Letcher County in 1930, placed emphasis on immunizing children against a wide range of diseases. Hardly a child who attended school in Letcher County escaped his needle. He retired from his job in 1965, having served the people of Letcher County for 35 years and 9 months. Collins was born at Colson a son of William and Martha Crase Collins. He was a relative of Letcher County’s first county judge. Collins traveled by mule to attend high school in Whitesburg. He completed schooling at Hindman Settlement School. Collins then attended the four-year Eastern State College finishing in three years. He received his medical degree from the University of Louisville and a master’s degree in public health from Harvard.

• Dr. John E. Crawford, a native of Colson, was one of 12 children of Campbell Calloway and Mary Collins Crawford. He attended Valparaiso University and Eastern State Teachers College. After graduation from the University of Louisville Medical School, he interned at Louisville City Hospital and then practiced for a year in Mt. Vernon before coming to Whitesburg in 1929. Crawford practiced in Letcher County until his death in 1965. His practice took him to all parts of Letcher County for house calls and deliveries. His office was located directly behind the Bank of Whitesburg, where he saw patients and handed patients medication in little white paper envelopes made especially for medication. He was often called out in the middle of the night to care for sick children and parents in the early 1950s.

• Dr. Harold Ray Gillespie, a native of Memphis, Tenn., practiced at Whitesburg ARH as a surgeon. He was graduated from Southwestern Medical School.

• Dr. Earnest Musgrave and his wife founded Jenkins Clinic Hospital, which opened in 1961. Before that he was employed at the Sharon Heights Hospital. He sold the Jenkins Clinic Hospital in 1969 and moved to Paintsville. At 75, he died in 1998. His daughter, Tamara, is a practicing doctor of oncology and infectious diseases at Pikeville Medical Center.

• Dr. Arthur J. Nash joined the staff at Jenkins Community Hospital in 1961 and made his home in Jenkins for more than 30 years. He also had a private practice in Whitesburg. Nash moved to Louisville, where he died at 89 in 2010.

• Dr. T.M. Perry was born in 1897 and spent his early years in Fleming County. After pre-med at Georgetown, he went to the Uni- versity of Cincinnati, where he was graduated in 1927. Perry delivered more than 4,000 babies in the Jenkins area. He set the state record for delivering the most babies in 1938. Almost every year he practiced, he was among the top filers of birth certificates.

Perry died at 82 on July, 16, 1979 when a water tank above his house ruptured, sending thousands of gallons of water through his home.

• Dr. Carl Pigman was born in Knott County in 1906 to Dr. Owen Pigman and Mrs. Pigman. He attended the University of Kentucky, University of North Carolina and the University of Maryland. He received his medical degree in 1936. He was an Army major and after the war returned to Letcher County. He joined his father’s practice in Whitesburg in 1950. His father, Dr. Owen Pigman, died in 1962. Dr. Carl Pigman continued to serve the people of Letcher County. He practiced medicine for close to 50 years. He died in December 1997.

• Dr. James Bert Tolliver, the son of Millard and Ruth Tolliver, was a Whitesburg High School graduate. Tolliver was graduated with honors from Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Louisville medical school. As a physician, he worked in Whitesburg for 15 years, before moving to North Carolina. He served on numerous medical and civil boards while in Whitesburg. He was a devoted family man, an avid golfer, gardener, and reader. Early in life he was a celebrated basketball player for Whitesburg and remained a University of Kentucky basketball fan.

• Dr. Benjamin F. Wright, a physician and surgeon, was a graduate of the University of Louisville medical school. Born and raised near Seco, he returned home to practice at the Seco hospital. He died in 1969.



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