Henry Drake convinced a medically clueless group of volunteers that we could start IVs, defibrillate a stopped heart,

and administer potent cardiac drugs years before laws regulated these procedures.

He told us that as long as we acted in good faith under his standing orders, we were protected by his license. We believed

him. I've often wondered how that would play in court. Thank heaven, it never came to that.

Our training secured, Dr. Drake cajoled City Council into spending unheard of sums to equip us with technology no

all-volunteer fire department anywhere was using at the time. In addition, he backed our requests for radio communication

which virtually placed a doctor in the back of the ambulance with us.

And when the state began licensing EMS providers and directing federal grant money toward equipment, it was Dr.

Drake who insisted that the service expand county-wide.

Don't misunderstand me: Modern EMS would have come to Fayette County sooner or later, but I credit Henry Drake that

its development was "sooner."

He was a good doctor and a lousy businessman. If he had seized the moment, he could have developed a first-rate

multi-discipline clinic in Peachtree City years before other doctors "discovered" this well-heeled, well-insured population. He

just somehow never pulled it off.

The Drake family is Old Newnan gentility. Henry's father was superintendent of schools in Newnan for years, and his

brother a federal judge. The doctor was so Southern that sometimes I could not understand his speech yet, I never saw him

give preferential treatment according to race.

When I became an EMT, I began working for him as a "technician" meaning I did whatever needed to be done, from

X-rays to allergy shots to EKGs to venipuncture to assisting with sutures to filing insurance forms. In the early days, with

the nearest drugstore 10 miles away, he kept a pharmacy for patients' convenience, and I even filled prescriptions.

Although we were the same age, he had an aristocratic bearing that fostered the old-fashioned image of the all-powerful,

all-knowing Doctor. In those days, few people questioned The Doctor's authority.

"Mrs. So-and-so wants to know why she needs those tests," I'd ask, and he'd draw himself to his considerable height and

look down his nose and pronounce, "Tell her The Doctor says so." End of discussion.

Henry Drake loved to teach, and he taught me so much medicine. Relieve lower back pain by "hanging" by your legs from

the side of the bed, your back on a heating pad on the floor it stretches out the spasming muscles, especially if augmented by

a muscle-relaxant. (This approach is out of style now, with ice preferred, but it worked back then, and saved patients a fortune

in therapy.)

Aspirin, unless contra-indicated by sensitivity or allergy, is flat-out the best anti-inflammatory for adults, and cheap aspirin

is exactly the same as the name brands. It reduces pain by reducing inflammation, not by dulling perception.

Take antihistamines the moment you start to sniffle and spare yourself sore throat, bronchitis, possibly even pneumonia

And you can lose weight, not with pills, but by simply ingesting less fuel than it takes to run your body. When people

claimed they had a glandular disorder, he used to say, "Did you ever see a fat person in concentration camp pictures? Among all

those people, there must have been a few with glandular disorders, but when you don't eat, you don't get fat."

He was a good friend and a reasonable boss who respected his staff. But he was sometimes cavalier about the plight of

working people who clocked out to sit for hours in the waiting room while he busied himself with concerns unrelated to the practice.

"Tell them The Doctor had an emergency," he'd say.

When I told him off and threatened to quit, he apologized and mended his ways for a while. Despite that, he was the

only doctor around who accepted Medicaid patients then, and he treated them with the same dignity he treated his well-off

patients. And although we chided him for being too quick with patients, he was evenhanded about that too.

Henry retired early with heart problems and for a long time lived in Colorado near two of his beloved children. When he

died last month, the obit said it was cancer that killed him.

I'm not surprised; he smoked like a chimney.

But I'm sorry he's gone. I owe him a lot.

We all do.

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