After being encouraged by friends, he recently wrote and published a book of some of his medical memoirs entitled “Lessons My Patients Taught Me.”
“I wanted to relate some of the joy I got out of practicing medicine,” said Day, a 1965 graduate of Middletown High School. “It mostly centers around my patient contacts and has humorous and inspirational anecdotes.”
The 30-chapter book contains many of those anecdotes, including one where a patient who had lower back issues who Day saw about every six months. When the patient returned from a trip to his cabin out of state, Day asked him about his back.
The patient said that “the bear cured it.” Apparently while the patient was at his cabin, he went down his lane to get his mail. He heard some rustling and a black bear brushed past him to another part of the woods. He told Day that he hasn’t had any back pains since. Day said he wanted to meet the bear for some tips on treating patients with back issues.
“If you try to do a job right, you can find joy in being a doctor or any other job you might be involved in,” he said.
After graduating Middletown High, he went on to Ohio University where he graduated in 1969. During all four years of college, he spent his summer vacations working in the labor reserve at Armco Steel Corp., now AK Steel Corp.
In 1972, Day was a member of the first graduating class at the Medical College of Ohio, which is now part of the University of Toledo. He did a rotating internship at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus after receiving a two-year deferment from the Army.
Day later served two years overseas with the Army. He was later assigned as the post surgeon at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis and did a residency at nearby Methodist Hospital as well as meeting his future wife in that city.
In 1979, he began a family medicine practice in Lafayette, Ind. and later became board certified in that area.
Day, who described himself as “an old Middletown guy who was halfway successful,” has been semi-retired for the past two years, but practices part-time and continues to teach medical students.
He said all proceeds from the book, which is available on Amazon.com, are going charities and medical organizations that include Juvenile Diabetes research as well as a support group for people who are at risk of or have hereditary breast or or ovarian cancer.
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