On a handshake and a promise, orthopedic surgeon Dr. William Minsinger committed to providing the Randolph area community 25 years of service. Twenty-five years later, Minsinger has made good on that promise and on Friday will hang up his surgical gloves in Randolph to fulfill some hobbies for which he is passionate and for some part-time work at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction.
A Massachusetts native, Minsinger came to Vermont fresh out residency at Tufts University in Boston. Gifford Medical Center and then President Phil Levesque was looking for an orthopedic surgeon – a specialist that to this day is still hard to find in our rural region.
In one of the first community health partnerships of its kind in the area, Levesque reached out to what was then the Hitchcock Clinic, a provider group affiliated with Mary Hitchcock Hospital, to have a Hitchcock provider work at Gifford.
“He was very forward thinking in that,” Minsinger says of the late Levesque.
Minsinger had interned and was a resident at Mary Hitchcock Hospital, so it was one of the places that he interviewed. Then Hitchcock Clinic President Harry Bird told Minsinger of the opportunity at Gifford and, after a look at the area, Minsinger and wife Linda, a nurse and now Gifford vice president of patient care services, were sold.
“When Linda and I came up, I promised Phil Levesque I would do this for 25 years,” Minsinger recalls. “I shook Harry Bird’s hand as well.”
“It was a very simple arrangement. My job was to serve this community, and I had an academic appointment at a medical school,” said Minsinger, who worked for the first five years without even a contract.
Contract or no, Minsinger took his commitment to Hitchcock, Gifford and the people of this area seriously. Except for the times when he was out of town, he was on call – meaning that if an orthopedic-related emergency needed his attention day or night, he was called.
Most weekends he has also been in the hospital visiting his patients following their surgeries. And, while Minsinger is the first to admit that hospital staff has worked hard to keep the calls to a minimum, occasionally there have been rather heroic efforts made to reach him.
In 25 years, Minsinger has fixed countless broken bones, dislocated joints and other injuries. He’s cared for thousands of area residents and even for a time was part of Gifford’s trauma team that, before the advent of DHART rescue helicopter service, stabilized and helped transport patients to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center by ambulance.
“Dr. Minsinger represents the best of the best as a physician,” long-time colleague and Gifford pediatrician Dr. Lou DiNicola said. “He is competent, available and willing to help any time with any problem. He has worked as hard as possible to provide care to this community, never saying ‘no’ to a request if he was within reach.
“Dr. Minsinger would think nothing of seeing 30 patients during the day, going home to work on his house or a chapter for a book he is writing or editing, and then show up the next day to repeat it all. And no matter what, it was all done well.”
“Dr. Minsinger enthusiastically took call for orthopedic emergencies seven days a week for over 25 years – a wonderful service to the community that will be missed,” added Rochester Health Center internal medicine physician Dr. Mark Jewett, also a long-time colleague.
Indeed, focusing on patients is what Minsinger will miss most of all.