GREENWOOD, Miss. - Dec. 31, 2023 - PRLog -- John Phenis Hey, MD, is retiring from a 60-year career in medical practice effective December 31, 2023. Hey's medical career began in the US Army with a stint as Commander of the 541 Medical Dispensary team in Vietnam. After he returned to the US, he moved to Greenwood, MS, and founded a practice as a family practice physician in 1967. As his practice grew he continued to pursue additional certifications and expertise in different procedures.

In the 1980s, Hey became interested in the emerging field of endoscopy and pursued training in the procedure, practicing endoscopy until the procedure became specialized. Midway through his career, he pursued a board certification in Geriatrics and was a Charter Fellow of the American Geriatrics Society. For more than forty years, he has served as the medical director of the Golden Age Nursing Home. Later, he pursued board certification in Sleep Medicine, was the medical director of a local sleep center, and has continued to diagnose and treat sleep issues.

One of Hey's passionate interests was private aviation. He achieved an instrument instructor rating and frequently flew a Cherokee 6 to medical conferences. A highlight of his aviation adventures was a trip to Newfoundland with friend and engineer James Cunningham. As a result of his interest in flying, Hey practiced a good deal of aviation medicine, and served as an FAA Senior Aviation Medical Examiner. He has been one of the few physicians in North Mississippi to offer flight physicals in Class 1, 2, and 3.

Heavily engaged in the Civil Air Patrol for thirty years, Hey served as the medical officer for the Mississippi Wing of the Civil Air Patrol until 2012. Hey has served as a frequent presenter on areas of expertise, including medical ethics, sleep medicine, geriatrics, and aviation medicine.

"The 20th and 21st centuries have been exciting times for medicine," said John Hey. "In the 1960s and early 70s I was privileged to see the ending of tuberculosis as a common disease in the Southeast. Rather than having to depend solely on penicillin, we gained a huge variety of antibiotics for nearly every type of infection. In 1979 the MRI was pioneered and offered us much more detailed information for diagnosis of complex problems. Organ transplants and cancer treatment have also taken huge strides since I began in the 1960s. The changes in medicine have not all been good. I think the divide that insurance and government regulation has created between the patient and doctor relationship has been unhelpful to good patient care and to our health."

"I've been very blessed to enjoy a career that I have loved for so many decades. I will miss medicine -- I love solving complex medical problems -- and I will miss the people -- the patients, the talented nurses and assistants I've worked with, and the medical students that came to me for internship in family medicine. Thankfully there's more to life than medicine. I have a beautiful family -- a wonderful wife and four children, five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. I plan to spend time working on some reflections on my time in Vietnam."

Hey received his MD from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1964, and a BS in chemistry from Mississippi College in 1960. He attended the Civil Aeromedical Institute, a senior flight surgeon school, in 1989. In 2020, Hey, an elder with Grace Bible Church, published God's Little People: A Physician's Odyssey in the Land of the Unborn, a series of reflections covering his career as it intersected with issues of pregnancy, birth, and life; the book may be found at https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Little-People-Physicians-Odyssey/dp/1952025109.

Patients may request copies of their records by phone. Past patients and friends were invited to a casual drop-in at the Medical Arts of Greenwood building at 405 River Road, on December 18, between 10.30 a.m. and 1.30 p.m.

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Established in 1967, Medical Arts of Greenwood at 405 River Road offers family practice, sleep medicine, and flight physicals to an array of patients from around the Delta. To set an appointment or pick up patient medical records, call 662.453.6177.

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Source: Medical Arts of Greenwood

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