For La. country doctor, it's a 'wonderful life'
Skip to main content
MDHC_Logotype_white
Subscribe
  • My Account
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • This Week's News
    • COVID-19
    • Providers
    • Insurance
    • Government
    • Finance
    • Technology
    • Safety & Quality
    • People
    • Regional News
    • Digital Edition
    • Operation Warp Speed Dr. Moncef Slaoui, Pfizer Group President Angela Hwang, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, CVS Health Executive Vice President Karen Lynch and McKesson CEO Brian Tyler participate in a panel discussion on the COVID-19 vaccine.
      Hospitals, drug companies strive to stand out virtually at JPM
      merrill goozner
      Healthcare groups should end all political donations—permanently
      Sticking to Mediterranean diet is good for the brain
      Joe Biden
      Revamp of the nation's vaccination effort may not be enough
    • Joe Biden
      Revamp of the nation's vaccination effort may not be enough
      COVID-19 hastens hospitals' revenue cycle outsourcing moves
      Operation Warp Speed Dr. Moncef Slaoui, Pfizer Group President Angela Hwang, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, CVS Health Executive Vice President Karen Lynch and McKesson CEO Brian Tyler participate in a panel discussion on the COVID-19 vaccine.
      Hospitals, drug companies strive to stand out virtually at JPM
      Dr. Bruce Siegel
      By protecting the healthcare safety net, Biden can put us on the path to a stronger country
    • The Check Up: Trenda Ray
      The Check Up: Trenda Ray of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
      Trenda Ray
      Q&A: Arkansas nursing leader looking for creative staffing solutions as COVID cases surge
      Cook Lydia 4x6_i.jpg
      Northeast Ohio health systems increase community benefit values in 2019
      Vaccine rollout hits snag as health workers balk at shots
    • CMS approves rule forcing insurers to ease prior authorization
      COVID-19 still a big uncertainty for insurers in 2021
      Health insurers' outlook boosted after Dems' Georgia win
      humana_i.jpg
      Humana supports Ohio not-for-profits with $500,000
    • Joe Biden
      Revamp of the nation's vaccination effort may not be enough
      CMS will raise Medicare Advantage plan payments by 4.08% in 2022
      CMS approves rule forcing insurers to ease prior authorization
    • Operation Warp Speed Dr. Moncef Slaoui, Pfizer Group President Angela Hwang, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, CVS Health Executive Vice President Karen Lynch and McKesson CEO Brian Tyler participate in a panel discussion on the COVID-19 vaccine.
      Hospitals, drug companies strive to stand out virtually at JPM
      Intermountain, Trinity, Memorial Hermann behind $300M private equity fund
      Operation Warp Speed to bump up McKesson's stock price
      Reporter's notebook: J.P. Morgan's 2021 health conference
    • A man in a room with servers.
      Momentum grows to outsource hospital tech functions in 2021
      5 things to know about Google's $2.1B Fitbit acquisition
      Providence bets on machine-learning, consolidating data centers
      Mental health treatment was most common telehealth service during COVID
    • Sticking to Mediterranean diet is good for the brain
      Chance of COVID-19 triage care looms over Arizona hospitals
      U.S. ramps up vaccinations to get doses to more Americans
      367146427.jpg
      Should businesses mandate that staff get the COVID vaccine?
    • Cone Health CEO, CFO to depart amid pending Sentara merger
      Tower Health's finance chief resigning after years of steep losses
      AHRQ director Gopal Khanna resigns in response to Capitol riot
      Brigham president stepping down after Moderna controversy
    • Midwest
    • Northeast
    • South
    • West
  • Insights
    • ACA 10 Years After
    • Best Practices
    • InDepth Special Reports
    • Innovations
    • The Affordable Care Act after 10 years
    • New care model helps primary-care practices treat obesity
      doctor with patient
      COVID-19 treatment protocol developed in the field helps patients recover
      Rachel Wyatt
      Project to curb pressure injuries in hospitals shows promise
      Yale New Haven's COVID-19 nurse-staffing model has long-term benefits
    • Modern Healthcare InDepth: Breaking the bias that impedes better healthcare
      Videos: Healthcare industry executives describe their encounters with racism
      Michellene Davis
      Healthcare leadership lacks the racial diversity needed to reduce health disparities
      Dr. James Hildreth
      How medical education can help fight racism
      Quotes from rebadged employees
      Outsourcing IT, revenue cycle takes toll on internal culture
    • A woman with a wearable sensor talking to her provider.
      Wearable sensors help diagnose heart rhythm problems in West Virginia
      self service station
      COVID-19 pushes patient expectations toward self-service
      Targeting high-risk cancer patients with genetics
      A nurse holds up a phone with a message to a family member saying surgery has started.
      Texting, tablets help hospitals keep family updated on patient care
  • Transformation
    • Patients
    • Operations
    • Care Delivery
    • Payment
    • Highmark Health inks six-year cloud, tech deal with Google
      Study: 1 in 5 patients report discrimination when getting healthcare
      HHS proposes changing HIPAA privacy rules
      Android health records app launches at 230 health systems
    • California hospitals prepare ethical protocol to prioritize lifesaving care
      Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway disband Haven
      Digital pathways poised to reshape healthcare continuum in 2021
      Healthcare was the hardest hit by supply shortages across all U.S. industries
    • A woman with a wearable sensor talking to her provider.
      Wearable sensors help diagnose heart rhythm problems in West Virginia
      New care model helps primary-care practices treat obesity
      How hospitals are building on COVID-19 telehealth momentum
      Researchers: Hospital price variation exacerbates health inequities
    • MedPAC votes to boost hospital payments, freeze or cut other providers
      Most Next Gen ACOs achieved bonuses in 2019
      Congress recalibrates Medicare Physician Fee Schedule after lobbying
      CMS approves rule to encourage value-based drug pricing
  • Data/Lists
    • Rankings/Lists
    • Interactive Databases
    • Data Points
    • Health Systems Financials
      Executive Compensation
      Physician Compensation
  • Op-Ed
    • Bold Moves
    • Breaking Bias
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Vital Signs Blog
    • From the Editor
    • Wellstar CEO calls adapting for the pandemic her bold move
      Howard P. Kern
      Recognizing the value of telehealth in its infancy
      Dr. Stephen Markovich
      A bold move helped take him from family doctor to OhioHealth CEO
      Dr. Bruce Siegel
      Why taking a hospital not-for-profit was Dr. Bruce Siegel’s boldest move
    • Barry Ostrowsky
      Ending racism is a journey taken together; the starting point must be now
      Laura Lee Hall and Gary Puckrein
      Increased flu vaccination has never been more important for communities of color
      John Daniels Jr.
      Health equity: Making the journey from buzzword to reality
      Mark C. Clement and David Cook
      We all need to 'do something' to fight inequities and get healthcare right, for every patient, every time
    • Dr. Bruce Siegel
      By protecting the healthcare safety net, Biden can put us on the path to a stronger country
      Healing healthcare: some ideas for triage by the new Congress, administration
      Dr. Sachin H. Jain
      Medicare for All? The better route to universal coverage would be Medicare Advantage for All
      Connectivity: a social determinant of health that can exacerbate all the others
    • Letters: Eliminating bias in healthcare needs to be ‘deliberate and organic’
      Letters: Maybe dropping out of ACOs is a good thing for patients
      Letters: White House and Congress share blame for lack of national COVID strategy
      Letters: VA making strides to improve state veterans home inspections
    • Sponsored Content Provided By Optum
      How blockchain could ease frustration with the payment process
      Sponsored Content Provided By Optum
      Three steps to better data-sharing for payer and provider CIOs
      Sponsored Content Provided By Optum
      Reduce total cost of care: 6 reasons why providers and payers should tackle the challenge together
      Sponsored Content Provided By Optum
      Why CIOs went from back-office operators to mission-critical innovators
  • Awards
    • Award Programs
    • Nominate
    • Previous Award Programs
    • Other Award Programs
    • Best Places to Work in Healthcare Logo for Navigation
      Nominations Open - Best Places to Work in Healthcare
      Nominations Open - Health Care Hall of Fame
      Nominations Open - 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
    • 100 Most Influential People
    • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
    • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
    • Health Care Hall of Fame
    • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
    • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
    • Top 25 Innovators
    • Top 25 Minority Leaders
    • Top 25 Women Leaders
    • Excellence in Nursing Awards
    • Design Awards
    • Top 25 COOs in Healthcare
    • 100 Top Hospitals
    • ACHE Awards
  • Events
    • Conferences
    • Galas
    • Webinars
    • COVID-19 Event Tracker
    • Leadership Symposium
    • Healthcare Transformation Summit
    • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
    • Workplace of the Future Conference
    • Strategic Marketing Conference
    • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
    • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
    • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
    • Top 25 Minority Leaders Gala (2022)
    • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
  • Listen
    • Podcast - Next Up
    • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
    • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
    • Video Series - The Check Up
    • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
    • Carter Dredge
      Next Up Podcast: Ready, set, innovate! Innovation and disruption in healthcare
      Next Up Podcast: COVID-19, social determinants highlight health inequities — what next?
      Ceci Connolly
      Next Up Podcast: How to navigate the murky post-election waters
      Next Up Podcast: Saving Rural Health
    • An older man wearing a mask receiving a vaccine.
      Beyond the Byline: Verifying information on the chaotic COVID-19 vaccine rollout
      doctor burnout
      Beyond the Byline: How healthcare supply chain struggles contribute to employee burnout
      Beyond the Byline: Covering race and diversity in the healthcare industry
      Beyond the Byline: How telehealth utilization has impacted investor-owned company earnings
    • Leading intention promote diversity and inclusion
      Introducing Healthcare Insider Podcast
    • The Check Up: Trenda Ray
      The Check Up: Trenda Ray of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
      The Check Up: Dr. Kenneth Davis
      The Check Up: Dr. Kenneth Davis of Mount Sinai Health System
      The Check Up: Dr. Thomas McGinn
      The Check Up: Dr. Thomas McGinn of CommonSpirit Health
      The Check Up: Mark Ganz
      The Check Up: Mark Ganz of Cambia Health Solutions
    • Video: Ivana Naeymi Rad of Intelligent Medical Objects
  • MORE +
    • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Newsletters
    • Jobs
    • People on the Move
    • Reprints & Licensing
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Physicians
December 09, 2004 12:00 AM

For La. country doctor, it's a 'wonderful life'

Joseph Conn
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print

    On Dec. 1, Kenneth Paul Mauterer, M.D., was to have had his big day in his tiny hometown of Olla, La.

    The auditorium at his alma mater, LaSalle High School, was booked. A couple of congressmen and local officials were scheduled to appear. And probably a goodly percentage of the 1,370 souls in Olla would have turned out to honor Mauterer, known about town since his schoolboy days as Kenny Paul.

    A couple of weeks before, Mauterer had been named Country Doctor of the Year in a national contest sponsored by Staff Care, an Irving, Texas-based locum tenens firm. The 57-year-old family physician was cited for a career of dedication as a rural medical practitioner.

    But around 9 p.m. on Nov. 23, a tornado struck Olla, ripping the roof off the auditorium, damaging more than 50 homes, sending about 25 people to the hospital and killing an 89-year-old woman Mauterer had known all his life.

    Mauterer said Audrey Hinton had been watching TV in the den of her home when her 93-year-old husband got up and went to the kitchen to take some medicine. She called out to him, asking why the TV had gone out, and the tornado smashed into the couple's home. Mauterer said he pronounced her dead at the scene. Her husband, badly injured, survived.

    Part of the rest of that night, Mauterer rodded around town on a neighbor's three-wheeled all-terrain vehicle, checking on the welfare of other townsfolk, including his two daughters and a baby granddaughter. Then he headed home, changed into some dry clothes and drove to Olla's 41-bed Hardtner Medical Center to help treat the injured.

    Mauterer got home around 3 a.m. Later, he phoned to have the award ceremony postponed. It's been rescheduled for Jan. 21.

    His recognition "has given the people around here a little boost, and it takes their minds off the devastation and that's good," Mauterer said. "What I'd like is if it would get some recognition to the area and get some help in here. That's what I'd like."

    In 1975, just one year out of medical school, Mauterer returned to Olla to go into private practice at age 27.

    "I had a chance to do a residency in surgery or pediatrics," Mauterer said. "But the town really didn't need anybody to specialize, so when I finished my rotating internship, I came back here."

    When Mauterer graduated from LaSalle High School, the Kiwanis Club took up a collection to loan the book-smart son of a local carpenter $2,000 a semester to help put him through Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport.

    The deal was that after he became a doctor, for every six months he practiced medicine back in Olla, a town tucked into the pine forests of central Louisiana, $2,000 of his school debt would be wiped clean.

    Mauterer started paying back those loans in 1975 with country doctoring. He has long since worked off the debt, but money was never the real issue for the man who said he decided in the sixth grade that he wanted to be a physician.

    Like George Bailey in the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life," Mauterer said he contemplated other paths.

    "I sometimes wonder, what if I had specialized? Would I have had more impact on people, or where would I be? But I think as a general practitioner, I'm very happy about doing what I did. We're from an area that's real close-knit. If you come out into a rural area and you become part of community, you still get that feeling. It's very satisfying."

    "We've had some good times. We've had some bad times, too," Mauterer said, recalling how one week he spent 132 hours on call at the hospital. He remembers that two long-planned European getaways had to be scrapped when a local physician got sick and another left town and the hospital needed a physician to cover.

    "So yeah, I regret some of that, and my kids have had to suffer, because there were places they would have liked to have gone, or activities of theirs I would have liked to have seen, but I couldn't. I've had chances to go other places, but when I thought about all the plusses and minuses, there were always more plusses to stay here," he said.

    For example, before medical malpractice insurance forced him to curtail his obstetrics activities, Mauterer figures he helped bring between 1,500 to 1,600 children into the world. "At one point, I went to a T-ball game and realized I'd delivered every player on both teams," he said.

    "As a rural physician, I'm told we don't make as much money as urban physicians, and I'm sure that 's true. But around Christmastime, I get pies and cakes from all my patients. I get ducks and hot tamales and all kinds of jellies and jams.

    "I got three heifers and one of those had a bull calf. I got that for treating a person with severe burns. I delivered a baby for a case of Asti Spumante. If I wanted to go deer hunting this weekend, all I have to do is call up one of my patients and they'll make room for you.

    "I also did a lot of free work, and that's a part of it, but that's a great sense of satisfaction, because most of the time they're very grateful.

    "The downside is a lot of patients I began with, who are my age now, you have to deal with taking care of them not only in their prime, but in their final hours. But that's not all bad, either. If you can take care of patients -- them and their families -- that's just as important for a physician to take care of them then as when they are healthy."

    Mauterer and his wife, Pam, have raised six children.

    "I've got a beautiful family. As long as you've got a roof over your head, something to get you around, a wonderful woman to share it with, and kids that are healthy, all the trappings, the things and the big cars, there're not the important things in life.

    "So, I would say I've got a good life. I've got a good life because of all the friends and things around here."

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    The Check Up: Dr. Thomas McGinn of CommonSpirit Health
    The Check Up: Dr. Thomas McGinn of CommonSpirit Health
    CommonSpirit partners with Morehouse to train Black physicians
    CommonSpirit partners with Morehouse to train Black physicians
    Sponsored Content
    Get Free Newsletters

    Sign up for free enewsletters and alerts to receive breaking news and in-depth coverage of healthcare events and trends, as they happen, right to your inbox.

    Subscribe Today

    The weekly magazine, websites, research and databases provide a powerful and all-encompassing industry presence. We help you make informed business decisions and lead your organizations to success.

    Subscribe
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS
    • Instagram

    Stay Connected

    Join the conversation with Modern Healthcare through our social media pages

    MDHC_Logotype_white
    Contact Us

    (877) 812-1581

    Email us

     

    Resources
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise with Us
    • Ad Choices Ad Choices
    • Sitemap
    Editorial Dept
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Code of Ethics
    • Awards
    • About Us
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Modern Healthcare
    Copyright © 1996-2021. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • This Week's News
      • COVID-19
      • Providers
      • Insurance
      • Government
      • Finance
      • Technology
      • Safety & Quality
      • People
      • Regional News
        • Midwest
        • Northeast
        • South
        • West
      • Digital Edition
    • Insights
      • ACA 10 Years After
      • Best Practices
      • InDepth Special Reports
      • Innovations
    • Transformation
      • Patients
      • Operations
      • Care Delivery
      • Payment
    • Data/Lists
      • Rankings/Lists
      • Interactive Databases
      • Data Points
    • Op-Ed
      • Bold Moves
      • Breaking Bias
      • Commentaries
      • Letters
      • Vital Signs Blog
      • From the Editor
    • Awards
      • Award Programs
        • 100 Most Influential People
        • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
        • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
        • Health Care Hall of Fame
        • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
        • Top 25 Emerging Leaders
        • Top 25 Innovators
        • Top 25 Minority Leaders
        • Top 25 Women Leaders
      • Nominate
      • Previous Award Programs
        • Excellence in Nursing Awards
        • Design Awards
        • Top 25 COOs in Healthcare
      • Other Award Programs
        • 100 Top Hospitals
        • ACHE Awards
    • Events
      • Conferences
        • Leadership Symposium
        • Healthcare Transformation Summit
        • Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference
        • Workplace of the Future Conference
        • Strategic Marketing Conference
        • Social Determinants of Health Symposium
      • Galas
        • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
        • Health Care Hall of Fame Gala
        • Top 25 Minority Leaders Gala (2022)
        • Top 25 Women Leaders Gala
      • Webinars
      • COVID-19 Event Tracker
    • Listen
      • Podcast - Next Up
      • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
      • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
      • Video Series - The Check Up
      • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
    • MORE +
      • Advertise
      • Media Kit
      • Newsletters
      • Jobs
      • People on the Move
      • Reprints & Licensing