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Show t v X fill I i LJi MWh ;J . MOTHERLY TOUCH: Dr. Terri Aagaard provides the "motherly touch" as she applies splint to arm of Ron Horton during Emergency Room procedure at Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful. Ms. Aagaard is one of few women ER physicians in Intermountain Area, By WANDA LUND BOUNTIFUL -- Dr. Terri Aagaard decided when she was eight years old that she wanted to be a doctor. Now she is one of four Emergency Room physicians who provide round-the-clock medical care at -Lakeview Hospital. The others are Drs. Bob Rothfeder, Denny Wyman and Steve Minimaugh. DR. AAGARD, calm an - professional after three years in the hospital's Emergency Room, relates well to her patients and to fellow workers. work-ers. She had thought she would become an ophthalmologist (a doctor who specializes in the care of the eyes), but became intrigued with broader aspects of medicine while "moonlighting" "moonlight-ing" in a small hospital in Hopkinsville, Indiana. Indi-ana. She was fulfilling her residency requirements require-ments at the time. "It was really funny," she said. "I liked my moonlighting more than I did ophthalmology, and I had to decide which was better for me. What I am doing now is definitely better, and I love it. It has been interesting and fun." AS A CHILD, Dr. Aagaard had to go outside her home town of Logan to get treatment for osteomyelitis. It was then that she set her goal on medicine. "I decided I would grow up and become an orthopedic surgeon and come back to Logan to practice. That seemed reasonable to me, and my father, still an optician there, never discouraged dis-couraged me. Mother thought I should choose a more traditional occupation, such as being a teacher. "WHEN I PLAYED doctor as a child, I would get my two sisters to take the vital signs of my patients," Dr. Aagaard said. The oldest of four children, she also has a brother. SHE SELECTED classes in junior high school that would help to prepare her for a career in medicine. She graduated from Logan High School and obtained her Bachelor's Degree De-gree in chemistry in 1974 at the University of Utah. She earned her M.D. at the University of Utah Medical School, graduating in 1978, then filled her year's residency requirement in Indiana. In-diana. Her first marriage lasted four years, and she was divorced while she was a sophomore in medical school. "DIVORCED and a doctor!" her mother exclaimed. ex-claimed. "Who will ever marry you now?" She suggested that her daughter, determined to have a medical career, go back to summer school and get her teaching certificate. "IT IS REALLY interesting -- the different value systems that our parents have," Dr. Aagaard said. "It is what they were raised with. My mother was opposed to my becoming a doctor because she thought the medical life would be too much. I think she is now convinced con-vinced that I can do both (have a career and a family)." The fortunate man who she married about a year later is Randy Aagaard, secretary-treasurer secretary-treasurer of Anticline International Oil Company, Com-pany, a Salt Lake City firm founded by him and his father. NOW DR. Aagaard and her husband are the parents of two sons: Thad, 3'2, and Robbie, 21 months. She worked in the Emergency Room until three days before the birth of her second son and was back on the job again a month later. She had also been pregnant while she was filling her residency. In both instances, patients and staff members mem-bers were kind, understanding and very thoughtful of her; she said. HER MEDICAL career meshes very satisfactorily satis-factorily with her time at home with her husband hus-band and children. She works 12 hours a day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and sometimes some-times returns to the Emergency Room for duty on Friday or Saturday night. "Most of my neighbors don't know I am a doctor, because I am not running out in the middle of the night," she explained. "I hardly ever miss church, and I don't carry a beeper. I have a wonderful lady named June who comes in to our home to care for our children. "THAD, OUR 3-year old, said one of his friends told him that doctors are men. 'That's wrong! Moms are doctors!' he insisted. I told him that men are doctors, too. The other day, he asked me if he could be a 'Daddy Doctor' when he grows up," Dr. Aagaard said. She would like at least three more children. "I HATE being pregnant, but I love having children," she said. "If I were to stay home for two or three years for that purpose, medicine would have changed so much that my skills would no longer be adequate. It is just incredible incredi-ble how fast medicine changes." A good doctor has to have good common sense and be determined that being a doctor is the thing to do. Many young people are not capable of making that decision at the age of 18 or 19, when the decision must be made. IF SHE COULD change anything, she noted, she would have taken a broader approach to education, instead of focusing so intently on academic subjects related to medicine. Only one or two men have resisted being treated by her because she was a woman, and young mothers have been particularly suppor tive, she said. "THEY WILL say to the children, "01 look, you are going to be treated by a hi doctor!" she said. "I can't think of a womat who has ever refused treatment." She recalls that one male patient was pan-cularly pan-cularly resistant, jumping off the table whs she entered the examining room. "I JUST told him not to be alarmed -tliai did this all the time, and he finally let metre him," she said. In an Emergency Room situation, she hai dealt with all types of illness and trauma, bn the biggest challenge has been the task d notifying family members of the death of; loved one. "WE ARE better prepared for the death of older people, who have had a chance to live i full life , but the death of young people or new lyweds is particularly traumatic," she said,! don't think I have ever had a young mother in the emergency room but there have bed young fathers, and it is devastating to their wives and families. "When I first began my career in medicine, everything was a challenge," she continued "I have decided that you get the basic k damental stuff in medical college, but you lean medicine by doing. A doctor is constant learning, and the challenge is to try to keep with what is going on and to practice good medicine all the time. Knowing howmuchytt know and knowing when to refer a patientloi specialist are important parts of medicine." EACH PATIENT who checks into Hi Emergency Room at Lakeview Hospital i; asked if he prefers to be treated by his on doctor or if he wants to see the physician k duty. About 16,000 patients are treated there eat! year. "WE ARE BUSIER on weekends, durit; good weather or in really terrible weather, Dr. Aagaard commented. "I can look out mi window in the morning before coming to we and know how busy I am going to be. "We treat the patients first whose immediate immedi-ate need is the greatest. It is bad medicine tok: a patient die in the waiting room while youare sewing up someone else's finger. We try ll' treat the patient who needs us the most at time, remembering that each patient belie16 that he should have the priority." HER TIME at home is spent in the types'-activities types'-activities that many other mothers alsoenjoy-sewing, alsoenjoy-sewing, cooking, taking part in pre-s programs in the neighborhood and spendir.i time with her family. |