Audio Interviews and Transcripts

Interview with Thomas McChesney
by Matthew McChesney

This is the interview Matthew conducted with his father, Thomas McChesney. Thomas’s father, Dr. Hugh McChesney, was one of only three physicians in Pulaski, NY. Thomas recalled his father's importance in the community. From establishing a private practice to working in a rural satellite medical center, Dr. McChesney required a full staff despite that he had less funding and fewer resources than medical centers in cities. You can read a part of the interview below in the transcript typed out by the student or listen to the full interview in the audio player below.


From 2:22 to 7:50

Matt: What about in the local area? What kind of other health services were there?

Tom: There was no formal health service. If people wanted more than just a doctor’s office, they had to go to Syracuse or Watertown.

Matt: Even for a doctor or – or dentist I mean?

Tom: Mmhmm. But then eventually when the small town - when his office and medical care got more organized from the hospitals they started putting small satellite doctors’ offices in these small towns and that’s what started Grandpa going from his private office to his medical center because St. Joseph’s came and they started putting in these rural, satellite medical centers. But even then it was just like a house converted into a medical center. And then eventually when they got bigger, or they talked about getting bigger because they – they had Grandpa do some work there. So now he was splitting time between his office and this small satellite medical center in Pulaski. Then he helped them to organize when they wanted to expand to make a full medical center. He was on the ground floor of making that happen.

Matt: Was he – did he work for St. Joseph’s? Like was he paid by them?

Tom: Yeah. Well he did get some money from them. But once he left his private office and went to work for this new facility, then he was on payroll there. And all of his – all of the people who owed him at that point, if he didn’t - if he didn’t have their - if they hadn’t paid him by then he pretty much forgave all those charges to all of his customers.

Matt: Really? So he had a big part in opening that health center?

Tom: Yeah. He organized it, he was on the - he helped design the building. He was interfacing between the main hospital and the board that was gonna build the facility in Pulaski.

Matt: What kind of role did he have in opening it?

Tom: He was like the medical director.

Matt: Did he really push for it?

Tom: Yeah. He hired one or two more doctors, a physician’s assistant, he helped hire the nurses. You know, he helped design the building. And then just saw patients.

Matt: Did it have a big impact on the community? Noticeable?

Tom: Yeah, it was huge because now people didn’t have to go to Watertown or Syracuse. They could just go to - so they could see more patients. It brought in more doctors. Plus he started doing more uhh - he was free to do more work for the schools, he could go in more schools and do the physicals and stuff like that.

Matt: Umm, was there specialties that worked in the health center? Like specialty doctors?

Tom: Umm no. No. It was the same sort of - they had the same sort of capabilities, same, you know, uhh, if they had something that was bad, you know like a bad fracture or something like that, or something serious, they would see them and send them right into the hospital. So kinda doubled as a doctor’s office but kind of like a - almost like an urgent care. But they didn’t do a lot of urgent care. They would just see somebody and do the, you know, the very initial, - if they didn’t take them directly to the hospital, they would see them and, and determine what kind of care they needed and send them to the hospital. But at the same time the medical center was being developed, that’s when you had all of these regional – umm, ambulance services started sprouting up. Like NOCA. Northern Onondaga County Ambulance. You started getting all of these volunteer ambulance corps. It happened about the same time. Whereas before, it was just a local, just like the local funeral home that had a hearse that they put a gurney in it if they had someone that needed to go to the hospital. The hearse would double as an ambulance almost. Or they would take an ambulance from like Central Square that would have to come in. At around the same time the medical center was getting going, this ambulance service started so now you had people going, instead of going to the doctor’s office they were going right to the hospital.

Matt: Okay. Do you think the health center impacted his work life? Made him more or less busy?

Tom: He was still just as busy because he had - probably more so because now he had not only his own business - he had to worry about the business side but he had to hire more doctors, he was in charge of more, he had a lot more staff to take care of, he had a new - you know - more of a computerized records keeping program that was more difficult and more complex, he had more government regulations that he – more - he had requirements and regulations in determines of running a bigger business that took place, so it kept him really busy with that.