As a teenager in Houston in the late ’60s and early ’70s who excelled in science, Dr. Lawrence Slocki says his career options were twofold: join NASA or become a doctor. Dr. Slocki chose the latter and, after years in the South, is bringing his experience and expertise in obstetrics and gynecology to Vermont – a state where he has longed to work. “Vermont,” he says, “is a state of mind.” Feeling like he has stepped into a Norman Rockwell painting or – soon – a holiday greeting card, Dr. Slocki enthusiastically joined Gifford Medical Center in Randolph last month.
For years – the 33 years of their marriage, and even before – Dr. Slocki’s wife, Patricia, has been asking him to move to the Northeast where she is from. They met while he was at Princeton University in New Jersey for his pre-med undergraduate degree. She hoped he’d attend medical school in the Northeast, but he chose Baylor College of Medicine in his native Houston. Next came residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, also in Texas.
Twenty-eight years of medical practice in Texas and then Mississippi have followed. Dr. Slocki, a fellow with the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, worked for the majority of his career to date as a solo practitioner, meaning he was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He also worked at a group practice and as locum tenens, or traveling physician filling in where needed.
At Gifford, he is working with two other ob/gyns, a menopause expert and six certified nurse-midwives in practices in Randolph, Berlin, Bethel and White River Junction. Dr. Slocki is working in Randolph, where he and his wife have made temporary housing arrangements while looking for a permanent home in the village.
“Being an obstetrician, the thought of being able to walk to work at all hours and through all kinds of weather is very intriguing,” says Dr. Slocki, who has a special interest in high-risk births, laparoscopic surgery and infertility.
Birth, says Dr. Slocki, “is a miraculous experience.” And working as an ob/gyn is an opportunity to care for women as a surgeon, obstetrician and almost as an internal medicine physician. “It’s truly family practice to most every degree,” Dr. Slocki says. “You get a lot of rewards when people look to you for their health care.”
Dr. Slocki prides himself on taking time with patients, working to understand their complete medical history and treating the whole person. He hopes to bring this approach to patients for years to come at Gifford as he makes the medical center his final career stop and Randolph his long-time home.
Dr. Slocki and his wife have four grown children spread throughout the country. He’s looking forward to them visiting his picture perfect new state, and to winter. “We can’t wait,” he says. “This puts you back to touch with nature, with your God. It’s a whole new way of looking at the world, and we love it.”