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Say ‘Hah’: Quirky county doctor wants to have fun Dr. Emory Lewis serves the sleepy town of Reedville, Va., where he is also a nostalgia buff, yachtsman, crabber, entrepreneur, raconteur and slightly loony pillar of the community.
Dr. Emory Lewis examines an elderly patient who is suffering from headaches at his practice in Reedville, Va. Lewis is one of five doctors, by his count, in Northumberland County.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
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Dr. Emory Lewis makes a house call to Zilphia "Zip" O'Halloran, 83. House calls are one of the ways in which he doesn't embody the trends in medicine so much as he defies them.
Melina Mara
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The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis performs many tasks for his patients, including lighting a gas fireplace for Zilphia "Zip" O'Halloran. His patients are mostly Medicare-eligible, and they supplement the doctor's reimbursements with gifts of home-canned relish and menhaden roe.
Melina Mara
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The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis considers a question from a patient. Lewis has no interest in assembly-line medicine. "A lot of times that's therapeutic, just to talk to people," he says.
Melina Mara
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The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis gives a memory test to new patient Helen Kinne, 88, alongside her concerned daughter, Deborah Kinne.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis gives a shot for pain relief to Margaret Shreve. Lewis is a native of the area though not technically a Reedvillian. He was born and raised in Fleeton, the hamlet next door. His father was a captain on a menhaden boat, and Lewis spent many of his younger days out on the water. He returned to the town after a stint in the Navy — he's a Vietnam veteran — and medical school in Richmond.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Northumberland is one of the oldest counties in Virginia, with a median age of 50. The old high school in Reedville is now a residential building for retirees. The first thing you see when you reach town, after the "Welcome to Reedville" sign, is the cemetery.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
In the basement of Dr. Emory Lewis's house is his man cave. It's a warren of rooms crammed with flashing, beeping, squawking pinball machines. There are also slot machines, a pachinko machine, a foosball table, a jukebox, a pool table and vintage 1950s posters.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
On the water, the doctor built a lighthouse to be a ticket office for boat tours in one of his not-quite-successful entrepreneurial ventures. It has the requisite jukebox, computer, refrigerator — and some great views.
Melina Mara
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The Washington Post
George Butler, a third-generation wooden-boat builder, repairs a boat at his marina, Butler Marine Railway in Reedville. Butler also does repairs for Dr. Emory Lewis's newly purchased yacht, which he bought from a neurosurgeon whose girlfriend was hydrophobic. It's called the Capt. Wallace Lewis, after his father.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis stops at home with his wife, Janet, during a brief lunchtime break from the clinic. Lewis lives on a point of land just five minutes by foot from where he was born in 1944.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis's assistants, all of them women, have been with him for decades — two for 34 years. When not helping patients, the staffers make asparagus soup or spaghetti sauce in the farmhouse kitchen for group lunches, such as this one, and they tend a small garden. "The girls," he calls them.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Signs line the drive to Dr. Emory Lewis's practice, which is housed in a remodeled barn. He wound up in the barn after a dispute a couple of years ago with the health-care company that employed him. He relocated his practice and entire staff to the farmhouse, built in 1816. The bedrooms have been converted to examining rooms. The floorboards are as creaky as some of the patients.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis removes a lesion on Charlie Layne. Prodded, he'll talk politics. He doesn't like President Obama's health-care initiatives and worries about socialized medicine and health-care rationing.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis removes a lesion on Charlie Layne. His favorite part of being a doctor is the minor surgery, working with his hands as he did on his father's boat. "I love to do cutting and sewing and things like that," he says.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis examines newborn Isabelle Bowles, whose family he has treated through four generations. He knows his patients and their parents and their parents' parents, and remembers which families have a history of diabetes.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis speaks to Brenda Jones about medication during an exam. Lewis has created a dynamic and successful life in a place where nothing much happens.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
Dr. Emory Lewis sends his patient Charlie Layne off with a warm pat on the back. In general, Lewis says he doesn't grouse about the world. He wants to have fun. "It takes more energy to be negative than to be positive," he says.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post
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