Charles Sawyer An exemplary personal & professional life

Story

Since the 5th century BCE, neophyte physicians have taken an oath attributed to Greek physician and philosopher Hippocrates. Although little is known of the historical Hippocrates, a body of manuscripts referred to as the Hippocratic Collection has survived until modern times

In addition to information about medical matters, the collection includes a code of principles or ethics for teachers and practitioners of medicine. Through numerous translations and emendations in language to reflect time and place, the oath has been taken through the decades, centuries and millennia by medical school graduates who pledge themselves to refrain from harm, prescribe only beneficial treatments and live exemplary personal and professional lives.

More than six decades ago, one of the young physicians pledging to commit to such a life as he graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine was Dr. Charles Judson Sawyer Jr.

Prior to that time, Dr. Sawyer had already begun an exemplary life. An Eastern North Carolinian, he was born in Kinston where his father was a tobacconist with the Export Leaf Tobacco Company.

The family soon moved to Rocky Mount and was living there when he started school, but by Christmas of his first grade year, the family had moved to Windsor, and there he remained through high school where he participated in the East-West Football Game as an All State Center.

After two years as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he enlisted in the United States Navy during the Korean Conflict and served as a hospital corpsman and flight corpsman on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific.

Describing this time as a “wonderful experience,” he fondly remembers the flight surgeon under whom he served, Dr. Victor Prather.

After being discharged from the Navy on 6 August 1956, he returned to North Carolina, and on August 25, married Lois Peel of Windsor. Together, they returned to Chapel Hill, living in the Glen Lennox Apartments – he recalls for $60 per month – where he continued his undergraduate education before entering medical school and Lois taught first in Durham and then Chapel Hill.

The not-quite average student of his first two years was now an honor student. Between the Navy and a family (daughter Cathy (Mann) and son Judson were born during his time there), he knew his reason for being.

With his internship and residency at the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston completed, he was ready to begin looking for a place to establish practice, to live his personal and professional life. He had offers from

Charleston, Tarboro, and Washington, but he came to Ahoskie, partly the result of a conversation his father had with Dr. Joe Lee Frank, a radiologist who divided his time among Ahoskie, Edenton and Windsor.

The radiologist was familiar with Dr. James Darden who was then practicing in Ahoskie and needed assistance. Seeing where the greatest need lay, Dr. Sawyer came to Ahoskie, “and the rest is history.” ... a history that begins professionally in a building where Sherwin-Williams is now located and personally in a house beside the Emergency Room; a history that records treatment of multiple generations for multiple maladies; a history that records service to patients in the office, hospital or home (in 2023, he still makes house calls).

He delivered babies, treated them as they grew and then delivered their babies and even their grandbabies. He has diagnosed patients and prescribed beneficial treatments throughout their lives. He has laughed with patients; he has cried with patients; he has even yelled at patients.

On hearing of Dr. Sawyer’s planned May 2023 retirement, long-time patient Tommy Hurdle commented, “But I won’t know how to act with a doctor who doesn’t yell at me.”

He has been a part of patients’ and their families’ lives at the first breath and at the last. He has led an exemplary professional life.

After six months in the original location, the practice moved to the current DrugCo location before finally becoming a part of Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center in its current location.

Described as his “career idol” by former colleague Dr. Julian Taylor, Dr. Sawyer is credited with bringing Dr. Taylor to Ahoskie. Just as Dr. Sawyer came where he saw the most need, so did Dr. Taylor, following Dr. Sawyer’s advice that if any other place which had made him an offer had a greater need than Ahoskie, then Dr. Taylor should go there.

Dr. Taylor notes that Dr. Sawyer’s long practice has spanned a remarkable time in medicine. Dr. Sawyer learned and was trained in the traditional school of diagnostics, but practiced into the age of technology, an age in which the human side of medicine was influenced by the presence of the keyboard in the examining room.

Dr. Sawyer, however, refused to allow any diminishment of the human element in his practice, continuing the interpersonal relationships he had developed with his patients, thus combining the exemplary personal and professional aspects of his life.

Pointing to Dr. Sawyer as the reason many young folks in the RoanokeChowan region chose careers in the field of medicine, Dr. Taylor recognizes the far-reaching effect of Dr. Sawyer on the practice of medicine in the area.

Calling Dr. Sawyer mentor, role model, and a great friend, colleague Dr. Michael Alston remembers his own teen years when Dr. Sawyer cared for the Alston family and inspired Dr. Alston to enter the field.

Noting that Dr. Sawyer has a tremendous work ethic and cares for his patients tirelessly in an unmatched manner, Dr. Alston says he has learned more about the “art” of medicine than the “practice” of it from Dr. Sawyer. Citing the standard of excellence in health care and community service set by Dr. Sawyer, Dr. Alston proclaims that Dr. Sawyer leaves a lasting legacy.

After a couple of years in the first home next to the Emergency Room where he was often called at all hours as the need arose, the Sawyer family moved to Stokes Street and lived there for three years, then building their home on Forest Drive in Colonial Acres. When they moved there in 1972, only three other homes were in the area.

As a young physician, Dr. Sawyer was dedicated to his patients, and that dedication has continued for years beyond which many others would have “taken down the shingle.”

In the original Hippocratic oath, the new physician swore by a number of healing gods to uphold ethical standards. Anyone who knows Dr. Sawyer knows he swore by God and continues daily to uphold ethical standards.

His professional life as a physician is inexorably intertwined with his personal life as husband, father, grandfather, neighbor, citizen, friend and Episcopal churchman.

A pillar of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church since September 1965, he is an example for all – whether leading the grounds crew as they weed and mow the lawn on Saturday or leading the procession into the nave for worship on Sunday morning.

He jokes that he is the oldest acolyte in the Diocese of East Carolina. Every morning, about the time the sun rises each day, he can be found at the church in private devotion before beginning his day.

On that day, as on each before it, he refrains from harm, prescribes only beneficial treatments and lives an exemplary personal and professional life.

Sarah Davis is a retired librarian and educator and a regular contributor to Eastern North Carolina Living.

OF

Athird-generation family-owned business serving the Triangle and beyond since 1958. Offering an educational approach to new &used piano selection, piano service &more!