New Doctors, New Challenges
After nearly driving off the road in a snowstorm in Nebraska on his way to deliver a baby, Dr. L.L. Loder decided that he needed a specialty.
"Family medicine was tough," he said of his general practice during the mid-1930s.
So, he went to the University of Michigan in 1939 to pursue ophthalmology. There, he met someone from Muskegon, who cited a need for an ophthalmologist and urged him to come to this area.
"My wife and I drove over, took a ride around the lake and decided this was the place," Loder said.
The year was 1941, and there were no ophthalmologists in Muskegon.
"While I was at U-M, corneal transplants were a special project in the early 1940s," said Loder, who practiced in Muskegon from 1941 to 1986. "Russia was way ahead of us and we were determined to forge ahead, so I had the chance to participate in the early developments.
"I was very impressed with Hackley Hospital when I came to town. There were many new physicians and a great deal of new equipment. Hackley Hospital has always had a commitment to the latest technology -- then and now.
"The technology has changed over the years -- the development of special eye sutures, high power operating microscopes, and now even lasers for eye surgery."
Loder used the expertise gained at the University of Michigan to perform innovative cataract surgery and the first corneal transplants in Muskegon.
He also was added to the Hackley Hospital consulting staff in eye, ear, nose and throat. The hospital had to alter its medical consulting staff in 1942 because several of its consultants either volunteered or were drafted for the Armed Forces.
Loder stayed in Muskegon throughout World War II, even though he initially volunteered to enlist. The United States entered the war on Dec. 7, 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The war would continue for the next four years.
"Dr. Emil Lauretti and I went to Battle Creek to get our physicals for enlistment, but I was declared essential for the community and for the war effort at home, due to the many eye injuries in local war-time manufacturing," Loder said.
"So I stayed at home."
Dr. Clay Tellman, who practiced medicine from 1949 to 1982, was born at Hackley Hospital. He was serving his internship and residency at a Detroit area hospital when the United States entered World War II. He entered the service, and met a urologist overseas who urged him to specialize in that area.
"The war really changed things," Tellman said. "A lot of local physicians went to war."
The World War II years saw a shortage of medical personnel at Hackley Hospital and across the United States. At the end of 1942, 21 Muskegon County physicians, 19 of them members of the Muskegon County Medical Society, were serving in the Medical Corps of the United States armed forces.
Although resources were stretched by the war, Hackley Hospital added its west wing in 1942. The expansion provided another 100 patient beds and added a lobby and administrative offices.
The Muskegon Chronicle reported the effort to raise funds for the expansion exceeded its goal of $277,500 by $62,000 -- a testament of the generosity of the community even during wartime. "This increase in bed space will help alleviate the serious hospital bed shortage in Greater Muskegon," the newspaper said. The $506,000 (of which the community raised more than $277,500) project also included improvements to the hospital's dietary department and kitchen.
The 1942 extension fund was one of three community campaigns -- the others were in 1955 and 1968 -- that raised a total of $3,564,000 for hospital improvements.
Despite personnel shortages in every department, but especially in nursing, hospital Superintendent Bob D. Dann announced that Hackley Hospital cared for a record 30,603 patients during the fiscal year ending April 30, 1947. Of the total, 8,206 were people admitted to the hospital and 22,397 were outpatients who received temporary care.
The previous year, the hospital had cared for 25,160 patients.
The shortage of nurses was so serious during the war and for a few years after that only critically ill people or emergency cases were admitted to the hospital. A newspaper editorial described the nursing shortage at Hackley and Mercy hospitals as "desperate" and warned that the lives of local residents were endangered.
The editorial appealed to registered nurses who were not active in the profession to volunteer their services.
Florence Dykhuis, president of the District Nurses Association of Muskegon County, returned in May 1947 from conventions in Detroit and Atlantic City, N.J., during which the worldwide shortage of nurses was discussed.
In an effort to alleviate the shortage, Hackley Hospital became the first hospital in the state to adopt a 40-hour work week for nurses, beginning March 1, 1948.
About 60 graduate nurses were on the new schedule, and a program to train nurse's aides -- students who had completed a semester of academic work and were ready to train at the hospital -- was being developed.
The dedication of medical personnel flourished at Hackley, despite the challenge of keeping up with the demand for hospital care. Dr. Frank L. Pettinga, a family practitioner who came to Muskegon in 1954, served as medical director of Hackley Hospital for eight years and is now the director for International Medicine for American Overseas Clinics Corp., recalled the camraderie among the physicians, many of whom worked at both Hackley and Mercy hospitals.
"We had lots of help from everyone," Pettinga said. "It was a wonderful way to practice.
"There was congeniality amongst physicians, risk-taking and the challenge of staying current in your medical career.
"You had the feeling of mutual support."
Reprinted with permission from the Muskegon Chronicle
