PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Lucius "Luke" Marion Lampton, MD, FAAFP

LYNNE JETER

PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Lucius "Luke" Marion Lampton, MD, FAAFP

Chairman, Mississippi State Board of Health

MAGNOLIA—Even as a child, Luke Lampton never doubted that he would become a doctor.
 

Following His Dad's "Strange Advice"

The pursuit of family medicine as a specialty for Luke Lampton, MD, resulted from following his dad's "strange advice."
 
"Although my father had training in both neurology and cardiology, his clinical practice was general internal medicine," explained Lampton. "As a child, as I made rounds with him at the medical center and sat in his office playing with his stethoscope, I knew I wanted to be a generalist physician. My father … had a soft spot in his heart for family medicine, and when he realized that I was serious about going into general practice in Tylertown or Magnolia, he encouraged me to go into family medicine rather than internal medicine. This was strange advice to come from a professor of internal medicine, but he genuinely felt that family medicine better prepared generalist physicians for rural and small town practice. His advice proved correct, and I've never regretted my decision to become a family physician.
 
"Many of my peers know that I'm a big proponent of primary care, but I also realize and preach the importance of subspecialty care in our state. In Magnolia, I may be able to supply most of the care my patients need day to day, but when I find a lung cancer, an available pulmonologist is essential for my patient. When I have a patient in the hospital who suffers an acute MI, I need a cardiologist right away. When I find an acute abdomen, I need a general surgeon available immediately. The breadth of family medicine has taught me not only the importance of primary care in our state, but also how critical are our state's specialty needs. Our profession needs to foster more primary care docs and more subspecialists. We need more of all kinds of physicians, and we must champion our profession as a whole to maintain a quality health system in our country."
 
As a family physician, Lampton faces personal and professional challenges every day.
 
"Medicine is not a profession for the weak of heart or body," he said. "It's highly stressful, both physically and emotionally, and we need to find ways to reduce the daily stress of our profession."
 
Because his dad was also his mentor, Lampton was devastated when he died.
 
"Losing my father at a young age was a terrible blow for me," he said. "To lose your father is bad enough, but when he shares your profession, especially the profession of medicine, there is an even deeper loss. So many times, I wish he were here for me to share with him a puzzling medical case or problems with staff at the clinic, or even the joy and stress of rearing children. I won't ever overcome his loss, but I do survive it by deepening my relationships with family and friends. The older I get, the more important family and old friends become. They sustain and comfort us and should be cherished."
The middle of five children born to T.D. "Bob" Lampton, MD, and his wife, Sara, Lampton's paternal roots trace five generations of physicians, plus on his maternal side, his mother was the granddaughter, niece and sister of physicians.
 
Even though he never felt pressured to pursue a career in healthcare, Lampton recalled "an unstated understanding that my mission in life was medicine, and that my goal was to be a physician."
 
"I occasionally rebelled against this path, strangely in medical school of all places," he said. "But I know it was the right and only path for me, and I thank God each day that I am a physician."
 
Outside of a few years in Birmingham, Ala., during his father's training at UAB, Lampton's entire youth was spent in Jackson.
 
"I love the city on the Pearl, its history and traditions, its old neighborhoods and downtown, and its restaurants," he said. "My father loved to take us to the Elite and the Mayflower, and I still love … these old eateries whenever I visit Jackson."
 
The elder Lampton was an internist with postgraduate training in neurology and cardiology, and for nearly a decade ran the Mississippi Regional Medical Program (MRMP), a critical federal public health initiative that funneled millions into Mississippi in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dramatically modernizing medicine in the state. A successful grant writer, he helped establish the first statewide blood bank in Mississippi, the state dental school, the state's first stroke unit, the state's first neonatal ICU and regional centers, and the state's first coronary care unit.
 
"Although it's long forgotten, MRMP made a huge impact on this state," said Lampton, adding that after MRMP phased out, his father became a professor of internal medicine and preventive medicine at UMMC and served as the longtime director of student employee health. "His influence on my profession choice and my interest in public health cannot be understated. My mother's influence was just as powerful, especially in teaching us how to succeed as students and how to make the right decisions."
 
Lampton honed his academic, athletic, creative, and leadership talents during his educational career. At Jackson Academy, he graduated valedictorian and served as editor of The Raider Rampage school newspaper. At Rhodes College, where famed historian Shelby Foote was among his professors, Lampton graduated with honors in history in 1988, edited The Sou'wester student newspaper, received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for service and leadership, and lettered all four years on the varsity tennis team. At the University of Mississippi Medical School (UMMC), where he graduated in 1993, Lampton was editor of The Murmur student newspaper, named Outstanding Senior Medical Student by the Department of Psychiatry, and received the national William Carlos Williams Poetry Award for penning "Witchdoctor," an honor that "brightened my life during a difficult period."
 

Professional Passions

Luke Lampton, MD, continues to meld his various passions and talents. He practices family medicine at the Magnolia Clinic in Magnolia, serves as chief of staff and medical director of Beacham Memorial Hospital in Magnolia, teaches family medicine at Tulane Medical School and UMMC, chairs the Mississippi State Board of Health, edits the Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association, presides over the South Pike School Board and the Foundation of Mississippi History, publishes the award-winning weekly Magnolia Gazette, and helps his wife, Louise, raise their two sons, Crawford, 13, and Garland, 11.
 
"Some folks seem surprised when they learn that I own and operate Magnolia's weekly newspaper," he said. "My life involves pens and needles, and the newspaper folds itself easily into my life. At times, it can be difficult work, but I have a wonderful staff that keeps the paper operating week to week when I get pulled to the hospital or clinic with a sick patient.
 
"Eudora Welty told me once that I had two strings on my bow, and my secondary work as a journalist at the paper and with the state medical journal has become a natural extension of my work as a physician. Central to medicine is the telling of tales and stories, and it's not surprising that there are many physician writers in this state. Several of the best write for the Gazette and the state medical journal."
 
Even though he has an impressive resume of current projects, Lampton's list of past accomplishments is even longer. Among recent highlights: presiding over the Mississippi Academy of Family Physicians, serving on the Information & Quality Healthcare (IQH) state Medicare Quality Review organization, and helping establish the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program.
 
"I fervently believe that physicians need to be involved in their communities, that they have gifts and expertise that other citizens don't have," Lampton said, emphasizing a trio of community and state projects that mean a great deal to him.
 
"First, the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program is the state's most promising effort to increase our primary care physician workforce in rural areas of the state," he said. "This was a program thought up and crafted by physicians at the Mississippi State Medical Association and the Mississippi Academy of Family Physicians. Physicians need to be sure that this important program continues to be supported by the Legislature. The concept also may reveal ways in which we can impact other physician specialty needs in the state. We've got to figure out a way to increase general surgery numbers in the state, as well psychiatry, neurology, oncology, and other specialties."
 
Lampton pointed to Janie Guice, executive director of the program, for doing "an outstanding job creating a meaningful and significant program out of the thin air."
 
Donations to the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program may be made through the MSMA Foundation or the MAFP Foundation, or by contacting Janie Guice at (601) 815-9022 or visiting the Web site—mrpsp.umc.edu.
 
"The second project close to my heart is the Foundation of Mississippi History and its efforts to create a modern Museum of Mississippi History," said Lampton. "All intelligent Mississippians should be a part of the foundation and support the effort to have a new museum built in Jackson by our state's bicentennial in 2017. While the Legislature has provided some funds for the project, individual contributions are critical if the museum is to become a reality."
 
Mississippians interested in making a donation toward the planned museum may contact Trey Porter at the state archives at (601) 576-6806.
 
"The third project close to my heart is the Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven," said Lampton. "This is an exemplary center of excellence, and shamefully, the Legislature and the people of Mississippi haven't supported it as they should. It's one of the stars in Mississippi's crown, providing arts expertise and training to our children, who have woefully few opportunities in the arts in the average Mississippi small town."
 
To become involved or contribute to the Mississippi School of the Arts, contact Suzanne Hirsch, executive director at (601) 823-1300.  
By 1996, he had completed a family medicine residency at UMMC, and by 2004, the American Academy of Family Physicians had awarded him the degree of fellow.
 
"My life was blessed and shaped by parents who loved me and emphasized education, religion, hard work, integrity, and kindness to your fellow man," said Lampton. "Growing up in a large family provided so many benefits. There are great life lessons, which are learned just by being in a large family. As well, my extended stays with my grandparents, Clyde and Dorothy Lott, imparted a love of Tylertown, Magnolia, and southwest Mississippi, and no doubt instilled in me an enduring passion for rural Mississippi and small town life."
 
If he had not pursued a medical career, like two of his siblings, Lampton might have pursued journalism or a professorship in history, but would more likely have pursued a law career.
 
"It's a profession, like medicine, which is cognitive, and in which you can help people and get paid for it," he said. "I have two brothers who are attorneys, and I admire them greatly. There may be nothing worse than a self-interested and selfish trial lawyer, but there's also nothing better than an honest, capable, and wise attorney. Frankly, in my family of physicians, my attorney brothers are the more popular and sought after at our family gatherings. We have more medical advice, and usually all different, than anyone needs. What a family of doctors needs is good legal advice. What a blessed thing!"
 
Lampton makes it a priority to carve out special time for his family, including wife Louise Lyell (the couple met as kindergarten teachers at St. Andrews School and became reacquainted at Rhodes College) and their two sons, Crawford, 13, and Garland, 11—"both scholars and above average tennis players," he pointed out, who were doubly "blessed with wonderful senses of humor"— and even the family cat, Spaghetti.
 
"We love to play tennis, hunt, travel, and visit cousins and grandparents," said Lampton. "My boys and I love Ole Miss football and the Saints, and we've been known to go to an occasional college or pro football game."
 
Lampton would like to fit more time into his busy schedule for reading, researching and writing about the history of medicine and public health in Mississippi. To that end, he may be found poking through dusty stacks of research libraries and studying old stones and markers in old cemeteries. "I can't say that my wife and kids share that love," he joked.

The Next Generation of Medicine

Luke Lampton, MD, is optimistic that great things lie ahead in medicine.

 

"The profession of medicine faces both wonderful opportunities while at the same time frightening dangers," he said. "The opportunities involve medical improvements through technology in battling our old foes, death and disease. The risks are that technology may weaken the patient-physician relationship, which is the most important thing in medicine."

 

Another risk: the dumbing down of medicine.

 

"Society may come to trust technology and technologists over the physician and his clinical, hands-on evaluation and treatment," he explained. "Quackery isn't gone as a threat. Ray Bradbury has a novel where physicians are administrators, and low-level plumbers staff the ERs and handle all the care, run the codes, and perform the surgeries. That was science fiction, but the concept is not so farfetched. How long will it be until low-level extenders, say extenders of physician extenders—say physician assistant assistants!—handle all the front-line care? What a tragedy that would be! We need to fight the creation of layers between physicians and patients. And we physicians have sometimes been our own worst enemies in this fight."

 

Lampton said the medical profession must stand together and demand the primacy of physicians in all patient care.

 

"Compared to the rest of the country, Mississippi docs are blessed in that we're greatly needed and also have opportunity to interact closely with our patients," he said. "I see good days ahead for medicine in Mississippi, and I'm going to encourage both of my sons to become Mississippi physicians."