Finding Jefferson

WAURIKA — Among the early settlers of Waurika were the hearty folks who followed many different routes until they came to the Red River Valley and decided this was the place to stay. Nearly a century later, some things haven’t changed.

For Dr. Paul Devaneson, the journey to Waurika wound through the historic capitols of Britain and Ireland; the elbow-rubbing streets of New York City; the stark, sandy plains of West Texas; and the foothills of the Ouchita Mountains in Oklahoma’s Little Dixie.

It’s been a wide-ranging, geographically-diverse trek Devaneson’s made from half-a-world away to the Red River Valley. But for her part, Jane McDowell is delighted Devaneson’s road has led to Jefferson County.

“We’re very, very excited and thrilled that Dr. Devaneson has joined our staff. Paul has had some very good training, and we feel very fortunate that he agreed to join us,” McDowell, CEO of Jefferson County Hospital, said about the hospital’s new family physician, who will also practice pediatric and emergency medicine.

Devaneson fills an opening that’s existed at Jefferson County Hospital since Dr. Harold Stout retired in 2004. He joins Dr. Rod Linzman and Dr. Steven Hinshaw in making the Waurika-based hospital one of the rare rural facilities with three family practice physicians on staff, and McDowell felt the hiring was worth the extensive job search.

“There’s not been anybody in that practice since Dr. Stout retired, but that’s because we’d been looking to fill that position with the right person,” she said. “We knew there was a need, because a lot of Dr. Stout’s former patients had not found a new physician. But even though we wanted to get back up to full staff, we didn’t want to just ‘fill’ the position, we wanted to make sure we could get the best physician possible.

“It’s difficult to find someone who not only wants to practice in a rural area, but also understands the dynamics of being in rural healthcare. That’s what makes Paul pretty special.”

So do Devaneson’s bloodlines and background.

“I’m a third-generation physician,” Devaneson said. “My grand-uncle built a church and hospital for poor people in India, my mother was a doctor and all of her brothers became doctors. I have a brother, sister and cousins in the United States who are doctors.”

In the process of following the family tradition, Devaneson acquired training that could have led him into several different areas of medicine.

He received a bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery at the Kasturba Medical School in Mysore, India in 1967. Then the road wound to Great Britain, where Devaneson earned a diploma in anesthesiology at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in London.

Although interested in surgery, Devaneson acquired a diploma in pediatrics from University Medical College in Dublin, Ireland in 1974, and he took another step toward becoming a family physician by doing vocational training in family practice at the Royal Infirmary in Halifax, England.

Then Devaneson’s journey away from his Indian homeland pointed even further westward. In 1976, he started a two-year residency at the New York City Medical College at Metropolitan Hospital Center, which he followed up by spending a year at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital.

Still considering a career as a surgeon, Devaneson enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, and was stationed in Abilene, Texas. By the end of a six-year hitch, he’d not only settled in to the American West, Devaneson had also revised his career plan.

“After I got out of the Air Force, I was in Abilene for 10 years in family practice and working part-time in the emergency room,” he said. “Then I went to the Lubbock area of west Texas, where I continued in family practice for about 10 years.”

Having lived in the hectic pace of metropolitan areas most of his life, Devaneson began to desire a change, and an opportunity to alter his lifestyle became the catalyst for a journey to rural southeastern Oklahoma.

Although it meant leaving his wife and daughter in the Lubbock area, Devaneson went to work for an Idabel-based physician who also ran several outlying clinics. Devaneson became the family physician at a clinic in Valiant.

“I have a passion for family practice,” Devaneson said, “but I wanted to work in a small town, in an atmosphere that was more stress-free.”

The timing, however, was problematic. Before Devaneson could relocate his family to Oklahoma, the economy in the Idabel area took a major hit and the Valliant clinic closed.

“That was when I applied for this job,” noted Devaneson, who began seeing patients last Monday at the Waurika Medical Clinic adjacent to Jefferson County Hospital.

“Hopefully,” he added, “I can soon move the family nearby, and stay here as long as possible.”

“It was a shame the people in Valliant lost their clinic, but it’s worked out well for us,” said McDowell. “It’s a very progressive thing for our community to again be back to an adequate number of physicians.

“And it’s very fortunate that we could find someone with Paul’s background and experience.”

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