October 12, 2006

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Community Physicians of Yellow Springs are Dr. Paul Van Ausdal, Dr. David Hyde, and founders Dr. Carl Hyde and Dr. Harry Berley.

By Virgil Hervey

A lot of change can occur over the course of 50 years, especially in the practice of medicine. In October of 1981 the Yellow Springs News, in reporting on the 25th anniversary of Community Physicians of Yellow Springs, noted the emergence of family practice as a medical specialty as one example. Twenty-five years later, on this month’s 50th anniversary of the local medical office, the specialty has served the doctors and the village well. But more change is inevitable, as Drs. David Hyde, Paul Van Ausdal, and founders Carl Hyde and Harry Berley, all board-certified family practitioners, pointed out when interviewed recently.

In 1956, after practicing in Yellow Springs on his own for eight years, Dr. Harry Berley, an Antioch grad, called his mentor, Henry Federighi. According to Berley, Federighi, the charismatic head of the Antioch College biology department, was well known for getting his students into medical school and, thereafter, maintaining contact with them. Berley, who had gone on to medical school at Northwestern and then served in the Army Medical Corps in post World War II Germany, before moving back to town with his wife, Thelma, a native, said that he had had enough of solo practice and being on call for his patients 24 hours per day, seven days a week. He wanted Federighi to recommend a partner.

Carl Hyde, another Federighi protégé, who was interning in Detroit, was looking for a place to raise his children and do alternative service as a conscientious objector to the Korean War. He said that after receiving a copy of a Federighi newsletter, he and his wife, Lorena, decided to move their family back to Yellow Springs so that he could perform his service at Dayton State Hospital. Eventually, Hyde worked out a deal with the hospital so he could practice part time on his own in Yellow Springs. He opened an office on Glen Street, and once his service was over, he continued in that office as a solo practitioner. Soon, on Federighi’s recommendation, Berley came calling and the two men formed a partnership.

Hyde said that Berley, being the older, more established physician, built the building where the practice is currently located on the corner of Xenia Avenue and Brookside Drive and the two doctors opened for business on Oct. 1, 1956. An office visit cost $3 and it was $5 for a house call.

In addition to seeing patients in their offices, both doctors made rounds at Greene Memorial Hospital in Xenia, and at Mercy and Community Hospitals in Springfield. They also delivered babies at those hospitals.

They took x-rays, set fractures and put on casts, and did blood work right in the office. When a Yellow Springs police officer stopped a driver who he suspected of driving while intoxicated, he could bring the suspect to the doctors’ office, where they would test his urine for traces of alcohol in a still-like device.

According to David Hyde, Berley and Hyde were some of only a handful of local doctors who accommodated expectant mothers who wanted to deliver by natural childbirth. They were also pioneers in the use of local anesthetic during delivery at a time when most obstetricians were using general anesthesia. After 10 years in practice together, they decided to give up obstetrics, Carl Hyde said, because they found that it kept them away from the office too much and they feared that they might be ignoring their other patients.

Although Berley and Hyde had been engaged in the de facto practice of family medicine since they partnered in 1956, family practice was only officially recognized as a primary medical specialty in 1969. Both doctors took the board exams and became certified as Diplomate members of the American Board of Family Practice.

Over the years they both served as associate professors in the Department of Family Practice at the Wright State University School of Medicine. According to Berley, medical school seniors and medical residents from the college would often get hands-on training in family practice at their office and while accompanying them on their rounds.

Berley was at various times president of the Greene County Medical Society and the Clark County Medical Society. He also served on the joint credentials committee of both Springfield hospitals. Carl Hyde was chair of the Department of Family Practice at Community Hospital.

In 1969 the doctors were once again experiencing the pressure of increasing demands on their time, so they expanded their building in anticipation of hiring a third doctor.

Paul Van Ausdal said he grew up in Beavercreek and has memories of coming to Yellow Springs as a teenager to go to the Little Art Theater and John Bryan State Park. While in medical school at Ohio State, he spent a month in training at Greene Memorial Hospital and the Yellow Springs clinic.

He was chief of staff of a hospital in Granite Falls, Minn., and board certified in family practice when he decided that he needed to find a place that had the same small town life-style, but was a little closer to civilization, Van Ausdal said. Yellow Springs came to mind and he made what he described as a “cold call” to Doctors Berley and Hyde. With the arrival of Van Ausdal in 1979, the practice became known as Community Physicians of Yellow Springs, Inc.

Berley retired in 1986 and David Hyde, the son of Carl Hyde, also certified in family practice, joined Community Physicians a couple years later. His father retired from the practice in 2001.

David Hyde, who grew up in Yellow Springs, knew from the time he was in medical school that he wanted to practice in his home town. He has a deep appreciation for the history of Community Physicians and the continuity of treatment the doctors have supplied to this community. To celebrate the practice’s 50th anniversary, he set up an exhibit in the waiting room that contains such artifacts as the light reflector that doctors used to wear on their heads and the still that Nurse Clara Geis would use to detect the presence of alcohol for the Yellow Springs Police Department.

“Some of our patients have charts going back to 1948,” he said. The charts alone provide a recorded history of the practice.

Of practicing in the town where he was raised, he said that he has treated high school classmates and teachers, and neighbors and friends. He admitted that it feels a little weird asking a former teacher to “open up and say ‘aaah.’”

David Hyde said that over time, with the advent of HMOs, the x-rays and the blood work had to be farmed out. More patients are referred to specialists because the insurance companies will only approve payment for certain office procedures. However, the office staff had to grow in order to deal with the paperwork required by the insurance companies.

Noting the aging population of Yellow Springs, Hyde acknowledged that a larger part of the practice is now geriatrics and that a fair amount of their patients are in nursing homes.

Carl Hyde said that not many students in medical school these days are choosing family practice. With the high cost of malpractice insurance and office equipment, not too many are willing to take a chance on hanging out a shingle, choosing instead to practice at hospitals and urgent care facilities.

But at Community Physicians of Yellow Springs, the personal touch of a family practice carries on. Of his retirement from the practice, Carl Hyde said he misses the contact with his patients, but he does not miss the paperwork.