By Arline A Fleming
Aaron Way, 32, who grew up in Hope Valley and was a teen volunteer at Westerly Hospital, finds you can go home again.
SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Dr. Jeffery Bandola often inquires — along with the well-being of his patients — about their gardens and their children.
But he never expected he’d be inviting one of those children to join his practice.
“I would always inquire, and I followed his career,” Bandola recalled of his conversations with the parents of Aaron Way, now Dr. Aaron Way, who is about to be listed among the physicians found at the South County Hospital Medical Office Building.
Monday was his first official day on the job, with a list of patients to meet, and a local reputation to uphold. Given that he’s spent three-fourths of his 32 years in South County, a patient could very well turn out to be a former neighbor, coach, or fellow scout.
Or, since Way has chosen primary care as his field of expertise, the day could also offer a cranky baby or the baby’s grandmother.
“That’s the plan,” Way said. “As a family doctor, we do infants on up.
“It just seems natural to settle into a field that requires a broad range of knowledge.”
His parents, Donald and Crystal Way, actually brought their son, as a youngster, to Bandola for a medical concern that neither doctor can now recall. But Bandola does clearly remember hearing that their son, who had grown into a young medical student, was interested in returning to the area for work.
Bandola, who has more than 2,000 patients, was about to become a patient himself a few months back, and so the idea of nurturing another doctor as a backup, should health issues linger, seemed timely and fortuitous. He knew of doctors who spent a year recruiting help.
“It just sort of fell in my lap,” said Bandola smiling, looking as if he has chosen the winning ticket among busy doctors competing for help.
According to Dr. Nitin Damle, a co-founder of South County Internal Medicine, in Wakefield, which has seven doctors, hiring additional primary care doctors is an ongoing issue.
“We’re always looking,” he said.
Damle, a past president of the medical staff at South County Hospital and governor of the Rhode Island Chapter of the American College of Physicians, said “the climate out there for primary care is not good. The percentage of medical students going into primary care is diminishing and has been for a number of years.”
Given the large amount of debt students accumulate by the time they finish medical school is one reason that medical students might choose to go into “higher-paying specialties, he said. Reimbursement is at a higher level than for primary care or for family practice.”
DR. AARON WAY stood in line waiting to graduate from Chariho High School just 14 years ago. He made his way to the University of Rhode Island, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in microbiology.
Before joining Bandola’s practice, the former Hope Valley resident went to medical school at the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Pa., and completed his residency at the University of Massachusetts in the Fitchburg Family Medicine Residency program.
Monday was Day l for Way, who has chosen primary care as his career. His first patient had telephoned last week hoping for an opening, only to discover the addition of a new doctor.
“Good luck,” said office manager Pat Gallagher, as the young doctor approached the room where he would meet his patient, Nancy Richards, of Narragansett.
He checked her file, knocked on the door, and then introduced himself as he shook her hand.
“I was looking at your resume,” Richards told him, “and I’m impressed.”
That biography which hangs in the waiting room reads in part:
“As an osteopathic family physician, Dr. Way diagnoses and treats diseases, physiological disorders and injuries of adults, children and seniors. He provides comprehensive primary care with emphasis on preventative medicine …”
Way said he also is enjoying teaching and has commitments at UMass medical school to complete during the next two years. But he said he wanted to reaffirm his South County connections and familiarize himself with Bandola’s practice and patients. He’ll commute once a week from his home in Gardner, Mass., north of Worcester. His parents still live in Hope Valley, and he has a sister, Elise, in Westerly, and a brother, Jason, in Rockville, Mass.
WAY, WHO WAS an Eagle Scout, he said, is returning to the hospital-type work he began as a teenager at Westerly Hospital.
“I’ve always been interested in medicine and the sciences. I volunteered at Westerly Hospital doing candy-striper type stuff. That’s probably where it all started.”
Actually, it could have started at Hope Valley Elementary School, where he was also a student, not all that far from where he and his wife, Lalanya, hope to build a permanent home. They have a 2-year- old daughter, Amanda.
“I love the area,” said Way. “There are plenty of opportunities for outdoor activities.”
Way says he enjoys treating patients of all ages, recalling a Pennsylvania practice where he was assigned to do a rotation, working with the one doctor who “was the only one in a 40-mile radius. It was amazing how one person can affect so many people.”
It was a rural area, he said, and patients would come in very sick, not having seen a doctor in a long time.
Way suspects that one of the reasons why he decided upon primary care is that during his medical rotations he discovered an interest in all aspects of medical care.
“I like everything,” he said.
PRIMARY CARE, said Bandola, “is dying, and it really shouldn’t.” He suspects other aspects of medicine are more lucrative, and so attract larger numbers of medical school graduates.
“I’m extremely delighted,” Bandola said, to have Way join the office.
“It feels like a gift to me.”
Hopkinton
Primary care physician Aaron Way meets with his first patient of the day, Nancy Richards, of Narragansett. Way graduated from Chariho High School. The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy
Way talks with office manager Pat Gallagher in the office at the South County Hospital Medical Office Building, in South Kingstown. Way will commute once a week from his home in Gardner, Mass.
“As a family doctor, [I] do infants on up. It just seems natural to settle into a field that requires a broad range of knowledge,” says Dr. Aaron Way. The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy [email protected] / (401) 277-7404
Originally published by Arline A Fleming, Journal Staff Writer.
(c) 2008 Providence Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
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