John Hall

OPINION: This is Physician Assistants Week, and Alaskans have good reason to thank the PAs who deliver care here.

Yesterday I retired. That's right, as of midnight last night and after thirty years I am no longer a partner in Alaska Emergency Medicine Associates. I walked out of the Providence Hospital Emergency Department for the last time.

The first time it happened was when my oldest son was about 12 years old. We went for a jog around Cheney Lake. I was never fast but fancied myself a runner, having done the Boston Marathon. He was home having lemonade when I finally finished our 5-mile run, which had become a race.

For 29 years I have practiced emergency medicine in Anchorage. I have taken care of bear maulings, heart attacks, gunshot wounds, broken legs, concussions, earaches, pink eye, collapsed lungs and ectopic pregnancies. I have reduced dislocated shoulders, hips, ankles and elbows. I have sutured lacerations, cut open hemorrhoids, drained boils and disimpacted constipated patients. I have inserted tubes into chests, bellies and bladders; needles into hearts, spinal columns and almost every joint; and my index finger into every orifice found in the human body. I have worked hard to help save lives and sometimes my help was not enough.