By John Meyer, MD
The early years in my medical practice were mostly educational. My father (Walter) and Dr. Bob Landers were general practitioners in the classic sense. They did everything, and my job was to learn. I also had my older brother Parker to help me. Between us, we were the only emergency room physicians, so we were each on call 50 percent of the time. We had to stay by a telephone because there were no beepers and no cellphones. We delivered babies, took care of nursing home patients, saw a lot of clinic patients, took out appendixes and gallbladders, fixed hernias, did hysterectomies, gave general anesthetics, and so on.
There was very little health insurance besides Medicare, and the clinic charge was $5 per visit. In our office, we had one office person, who checked people in and out and handled insurance, and we each had one assistant, whom we trained ourselves. I knew just about everybody in the hospital, as the staff was quite small. There was one person who did all the lab tests and one person to do x-rays. Nurses wore white uniforms and nurses’ caps, and they also did everything.
The hospital was always struggling financially at that time, so we had to be very frugal with the money spent. The hospital Board, made up of community citizens—as it is now—watched every dollar.
The medical staff was quite small at that time. I was the fifth doctor. By 1977, we had lost several, so for a time, my brother Parker and I were the only physicians on the staff. We recruited several doctors over the early years that came and went, the notable exception being Dr. Miles Hutson, who has been on the staff almost as long as I have.
Over the years, I have seen a lot of changes in the hospital and in the community. The hospital continued to grow, offering more and better services, both in trained personnel and in technical abilities. We established a 24-hour emergency department, a great service to the community; we attracted a number of specialists from San Antonio to come and provide their expertise locally; and we continued to expand both the medical staff and the personnel working at the hospital, becoming a leading employer in the county.
Hondo has grown a lot in the last 50 years. I never considered moving my medical practice to another community, because both my dad and my grandfather spent their entire professional lives here, and I have always felt that Hondo and Hondo people are special.
We now have a fourth-generation Dr. Meyer here: Dr. Emily Meyer. She announced to us when she was about 5 that she was going to be doctor when she grew up, and she never considered doing anything else as she grew. I am very proud of her, but I don’t want anybody to think that I am ready to pass the reins to her, because I still have plenty of good years left and I love what I do. I intend to still be on the medical staff when my twin grandsons finish their medical training and return to Hondo.
Employee spotlight
"Our people are the sources of our strength" was added to Medina Regional Hospital’s mission statement in 2004, but it has been evident throughout the 50 years of the hospital’s history. Two employees, Luisa Lopez and Yvonne Stein, RN, joined the staff of Medina County’s only hospital in the mid-1970s and continue to share their skills and talents today.
Luisa Lopez
Lopez has worked at Medina Regional Hospital for 38 years. She started in the laundry service department in April 1975. Back then, there were no disposable linens for surgeries and OB patients at the hospital, so the staff washed and reused the sheets, towels and patient gowns from surgeries in a separate washer. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the hospital began using a linen service.
“I have seen a lot of changes at the hospital over the years and still, to this day, enjoy my job,” Lopez says. “It has been like my second family. I had my youngest child at the hospital after I started working there, and now my family has grown from five children to 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.”
Yvonne Stein, RN
Stein began working at the hospital as a registered nurse in 1976. She attended college at Southwest Texas State in San Marcos and the Baptist School of Nursing in San Antonio. Upon graduation, she joined the team at Medina Regional. Both of her children were delivered at Medina Regional Hospital by Parker Meyer, MD—and her two grandchildren were also delivered at Medina Regional.
“Nursing was very different when I started,” Stein says. “There was one RN, an LVN and an aide for a 30-bed hospital. There was not an ER doctor on staff back then, so the nurse would see the patients first and call a local doctor as needed. The changes in technology have made all the difference in the world.
“I’ve never been a patient at any other hospital. Our nursing staff is our greatest asset, and you get the best personal care here. It is your family, your friends and your neighbors caring for you. There are some things that aren’t available here, but we are constantly adding new surgeons and services, so ask if your surgery can be performed here before going anywhere else.”