Revered Cda Physician Retires
Simone Kincaid knew the white-haired man she’d just heard speak on women’s health was the doctor for her.
She was young, idealistic and ready to start a family in 1978. He was 69 and comfortable in Coeur d’Alene’s Women’s Center, a new place many people perceived as a feminist stronghold.
“He was warm. He was a human being. You could tell he was the type of person who would call you if he heard something had happened to you,” she says.
Dr. E.R.W. Fox not only called Simone after he delivered her children a few years later, he periodically sent kind notes praising her family’s achievements.
When he retired at age 87 last week after 57 years with a stethoscope around his neck, Simone mourned.
“It’s sad because there just aren’t any doctors like him anymore,” she says.
Ted Fox delivered more than 4,000 babies and doctored generations of Coeur d’Alene families. His skill, wisdom and character are so admired that Kootenai Medical Center named the auditorium in its new Health Resource Center after him.
“Through his writings, generous gifts of time, lectures, presentations, talks - no one has contributed more to community health education,” says Jim Faucher, director of the medical center’s foundation. “There’s no one like Ted Fox.”
He’s a favorite among patients as well. Some have stayed with him for his entire career.
“I think it has to do with how you treat patients,” Fox says. “I’m not ashamed to weep a few tears with a family.”
He’s a modest man who’s more comfortable asking about others than speaking about himself. He could have retired years ago but waited until he found the right doctors to take over the 1,000 patients in his care.
“You can’t just walk away from a medical practice. You have patients who depend on you,” he says. “They need someone caring.”
Fox was raised to care about people and cherish education. His father was a Lutheran minister who required his six children to study Latin, French and German.
Medicine wasn’t a goal until a college anatomy professor intrigued Fox with embryology. He finished medical school at the University of Chicago, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, married a nurse and headed West to start a family and career. It was 1939.
Coeur d’Alene had eight doctors and 12,000 people when Fox arrived. His specialty meant nothing. Doctors then did everything, from orthopedic and brain surgery to delivering babies at home and stitching wounds in the woods.
“We were reluctant to refer,” he says, chuckling. “It meant we weren’t doing the job.”
Fox shared an office downtown until 1959 when he opened his own on 11th Street.then, he was entrenched in community activities - city and hospital committees, the Rotary Club, the library. He didn’t plan his involvement; he just let it happen.
“That’s the thing you do if you want to be part of your community, sink your roots,” he says.
Fox doctored while the community doubled in size and insurance depersonalized his job. When he began, people often paid him with barrels of apples or a few chickens. They were grateful for his services.
But over the years, insurance took over the payments and the doctor-patient relationship changed.
“Patients directed their gratitude to the insurance companies rather than the doctors,” Fox says. But he’s not complaining. “I still got a lot of hugs.”
Doctors’ duties also changed. The do-it-all doctor became the delegate-it doctor as paraprofessionals added a new dimension to the medical world. Fox easily gave up some aspects of the job, but stubbornly held on to others.
“I still follow up on my patients at home,” he says. “I feel that’s very important. The personal touch is very worthwhile.”
Fox adapted to new technology and ideas so well that he was often tabbed to lead committees at Kootenai Medical Center. He took on his latest and most complicated eight years ago.
As chairman of the hospital’s ethical support committee, Fox faced families struggling with life/death decisions. The hospital kept one man with Lou Gehrig’s disease on life support until his wife and nurse came to Fox’s committee.
“They wanted to let him die. He had told his wife through eye movements that he wanted to die,” Fox says. “We recommended turning off his oxygen and he finally expired.”
Age was kind to Fox. It didn’t slow his dexterous hands in surgery or in sculpting in his spare time. He never missed an opportunity to exercise his mind. In 1993, he compiled his years of experience into a book of 134 conversational medical essays called “Family Doctor.”
The book sold 5,000 copies. He also wrote a biweekly medical column for the Coeur d’Alene Press and contributed occasionally to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“I liked English in high school,” he says, still grateful to the teacher who inspired him to write. “It’s just something I do.”
Fox avoided retirement for as long as possible. Work helped him through his wife’s death in 1986. But back problems that required surgery last summer finally persuaded him to quit. He wasn’t ready.
“I look at retirement with hesitancy,” he says. “I’m afraid I’ll vegetate.”
But he won’t. His office doors are closed but he hasn’t lost his need to help people. He plans to write, continue his committee work at the hospital, garden and follow his grandchildren.
And, maybe, steer a few youngsters into medicine.
“The practice of medicine is a wonderful, wonderful way to spend a life,” he says. “I would do it even if I didn’t get paid.”
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