April 15, 2018

Interviewee Internviewer(s)
Bill and Jennifer Browning Sydney Talkington
1250 360th 1362 390 St.
Madison, KS 66860 Madison, KS 66860
stalkington@usd386.net

Austin Watts
411 Cherry St.
Madison, KS 66860
awatts@usd386.net

Doctor Browning

Sydney-So when you started how did you find Madison?

Dr. Browning-I had met Dr. M and he had asked me to come take over for him
but by the time I got their to take over full time he said no
but he later moved out and went to work at ABZ for about 10 years

Mrs.Browning- Oh no not even that long because he went to the nursing home.
bless his heart he had no family and he didn't have anything else to do and he was kinda aloe,
besides his many girlfriends. Older ladies besides that he kinda hung around their, but more than
thing he visited with people who come in and out of the nursing home before he died

Mr.Browning- talk about predecessors Dr. Lose was the medical doctor in town about that time.
He had actually came out to the house and delivered my dad in this house in 1916. When i was in
my 3rd year of medical school. Dr.Lose became very ill and came up to Newman hospital and
was terrible sick with shortness of breath and i was on what was called the pulmonary service at
that time taking care of people at the time with respiratory problems and Newman couldn't help
him because he was officially dyeing right when he arrived and i went in to see him and evaluate
him along with the resident on service who specialized in that kind of illness.
He realized that Dr. Lose was about to die and ran out of the room and called a code blue leaving
me in the room. Dr.Lose his last words were to me “don't go to madison “and he never said
anything after that and that was the end
Sydney - Why do you think he said that

Dr. Browning -I think he was afraid of the competition

Sydney - Where did you graduate from with your doctors agree

Dr. Browning -KU medical school and then i did a year of internship and 2 years of residence in
Wichita

Sydney -Ok

Dr. Browning - So I was 31 when I got to madison

Sydney - Did you get your inspiration to be a doctor from your family or have you always
wanted to help people

Dr. Browning -My father was a doctor as well as my grandfather and I rejected all that
I wanted to come out and run the ranch until about the time I graduated from college my father
and grandfather said no I was going to have to go back to K-state and get some Ag courses and
then your going to have to work in the office in Kc and that wasn't for me
so I went to work at St.Francis in Wichita, their was a young orthopedic surgeon that I admired
greatly and had finally decided that I would go to medical school so I could be like him.

Austin Watts- So you said that you were 31 when you came here was that when you started
that when I started in madison

Dr. Browning- I went to school regularly except for 2 years I goofed around but I wasn't
prepared for medical school. When I decided I was going to do that so I had to go back and get
courses in biology, chemistry and physics. So I spent two years in school and that slowed me
down otherwise I would have been 28 when I started.

Sydney -Why did you choice a small tow to start your business

Dr. Browning -Because it was next to the ranch and I knew a lot of people from here from
growing up around here at least the summer and weekends and I loved that place.

Mrs. Browning -He always said he wanted the best of both worlds
he loved medicine and loved being on the ranch

Austin Watts-Did you have any employees that helped

Dr. Browning- I always had a nurse in the last couple of years
Jennifer how many years were you the nurse?
Because Darla was our last nurse.

Mrs. Browning -No willia fankhouser was their for a couple of years after that.

Dr. Browning -Then Jennifer took over after that.

Mrs. Browning -I was always their intermittently and I would do insurance and a lot of other
things and um then when Darla left I really started working in the lab most of the time and we
had willia fankhouser working for us, so I would come in and out and do a lot of things. that was
the wonderful thing about having a nursing degree because I could do it all and so I it was maybe
5 years that I worked full time. We always had secretaries and that Cindy Beyer for 18 years,
then we had diaia williams,sherna reed worked for us for awhile and finally diana waggner.

Sydney - What were some of the biggest challenges you faced starting your business.

Dr. Browning- Building up peoples confidence in me so that we got an increasing amount of

patients as time went by considering how small the town is was a bit of a challenge, we got
people to come from places beyond the outside of madison, we had people coming from trono,
peedmont, servery, emporia,burlington,and eureka.

Austin Watts -What were some of the best stories that happened in the doctor office.

Dr. Browning - Nothing dramatic and I'm happy about that I don't like a lot of drama and a
doctor does get to participate in saving lives even outside the emergency room by making
important diagnoses that lead to treatment that is early enough to intervene someones outcome.
So that is probably the main excitement. We had tearable things happen like 3 year old kids come
in that had been abused and would come out over a course of event. Everyone in the office would
be in tears by the time they would leave but thats not excitement exactly.It is still very profound
I did work in the emergency room for several years and the most exciting thing that happened
was their was two men, and this was out in great bend but they had came in, and this was my
first night of working in the hospital but they came in and threw this 20n year old girl down on
the emergency table and she was not breathing and they didn't know how long she hadn't been
breathing or any of the history that was going on their. This was back when Narcan was very first
available, people didn't know very much about it yet but its what you use in opide. We had given
her a narcan shot and she woke up laughing. I could of slapped her and then she drifted away
again and stopped breathing again then we gave her another dose to her and she came to
permanently. That was dramatic. I had never been to that hospital so i had no idea where
anything was or who i needed to get for the situation but people did show up and it was
successful
Sydney- What was your first major doctor emergency in madison.
Dr.Browning -It was maybe when Elizabeth was 5 or 6 no it was Will when i had gotten a night
call about a man having chest pain and i ran the electric cartogram and he was having a heart-
attack. we got him up to Emporia in time.

Austin Watts - Was your business a partner business or just your business.

Dr. Browning - I had a partner for 2 years and that shorty ended soon after. So the other 36 years
i was solo.

Austin Watts - That was pretty good

Austin Watts -Was is better to be alone?

Dr. Browning -It was good to have a partner so you weren’t called on every night but i would
occasionally just go away sometimes and then people would have to use the emergency room.

Sydney - What were some of the challenges you faced?

Dr. Browning -One was keeping up with the current medical knowledge and being 25 miles from
the next doctor was a little bit of a problem and trying to consult with other physicians about
problem cases. From such a distance. The expenses for a solo doctor out in the middle of
nowhere was a problem, we were buying medical supplies in small quantity. So the medical
supply companies charged us very high. We had to have people come and pick up our labitories
work we had collected over the day like blood samples, that we were the farthest out and the last
stop, so we really had to be flattering to those people. Trying to keep the roof on the building was
a deal, it was a flat roof and we had major leaks and had to replace the roof twice entirely.

Sydney - Did you meet Jennifer while you were in college or later on?

Dr. Browning- I met her while I was in collage, I had finished my first semester of my senior
year of collage and then stopped going to collage for two years, those were the years i took the
night courses and while i took the night classes I was an orderly at the hospital she worked at.
I was pushing patients around on carts for those two years and passing instruments during
surgery. Whats called a scrub tech, the surgeon sits their and says scalpel and you slap the scalpel
in his hand and then kelly, which is a kind of clamp.
sometimes hell say was he doesn't want and he’ll turn to you and say give me what i want
goddamnit not what i said.

Sydney - At times did you ever give the doctor the wrong instrument.

Dr. Browning - One night I had to help a nerve surgeon and I had never been in that kind of
surgery before, this guy had been hit with a tire and it had cut up his face pretty good. The
surgeon had asked for an instrument and I passed it to him and he said what is wrong with you,
you know what you just did, you passed an instrument over the brain and had that instrument had
been dropped it could had gone right into his brain. I didn't know that, but i sure did know after
that. Their was another time that their was a plastic surgery case and they got to harvest the skin
off the back of the guys leg to replace the skin he had lost on his face, and when it was all over
the surgeon said to take all the extra skin and save it incase we need to reply it to the face later
and he asked where it was and all I could say it was down in the bucket with all the dirty rags.

Sydney -How many years have you lived in the community?

Dr. Browning -42 years

Sydney -Where else have you lived before madison?

Dr. Browning -Kanas city,William town Massechuites, Wichita

Austin Watts -How did your job impact your family?

Mrs. Browning -He was gone quiet a bit for awhile and specially when the kids where younger
because like any other family you have to make a living and we couldn't always make all the
games during school. When Elizabeth got into high school we said it wasn't worth it and we quite
going to gridly on Thursdays. Sometimes bill would take his homework with him up to the
games

Sydney -What were your interest and hobbies besides being a doctor.

Dr. Browning -Ranching, qual hunting, deer hunting,fishing,basically everything outdoors and
horses.
Sydney - What age did you guys have your kids and how did that effect your work life/

Dr. Browning -We had Will before we came to madison and Elizabeth 4 years later and it never
slowed anything down, in fact we built back room in the office for the kids to stay in and their
their friends could come over and hangout in.

Mrs. Browning -Very little babysitting because they were always with us in the office.

Sydney - What year did you graduate from high school and what high school.

Dr. Browning -South east high school in Wichita in 63

Sydney -Did you have any nicknames while being a doctor?

Dr. Browning -I hope not or i wasn't aware of them.

Sydney - Is their anything you would of changed with your office or the way you worked.
Dr. Browning -I don't think i would change a thing, it worked out great and i retired at just the
right time.

Austin Watts -Do you have any regret.

Dr. Browning -Going threw the 4 years of collage,4 years of medical school and 3 more years of
graduate school training its like giving away your young adult hood and sacrificing more than
you would like to. It was just a lot of time indoors and i would of liked to have been outdoors
more than anything. I had 11 years in the classroom or the hospital when i would have liked to
have spent more of that time fishing or qual hunting and horse backing.

Sydney - Were you ever squeamish with the sight of blood.

Dr. Browning -When i was working at the hospital as an orderly the first operation i helped with
is gall bladder surgery and they had this poor guy all cut open and the surgeon says to the nurse”
whats the on-tray in the cafeteria today” and I thought why would these people be thinking of
food while in surgery. But other than that no i was never squeamish with blood.

Dr. Browning - Their was some pretty horrible smelling stuff but that was about it.
Mrs. Browning - I wouldn't change anything about our practice in madison our patients became
our family and very close friends. we got to know everybody and got to see generations grow up.
That was the hardest part about retiring is no longer see those people and getting to interact with
them.Because things didn't work out and we sometimes didn't see very many people as we would
like.

Sydney -Well thank you guys so much for allowing us to come out and ask questions.

Austin Watts-yes thank you