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Dr. John Verby diverted doctors to rural areas
The U Medical School teacher turned down a baseball career and helped develop an apprenticeship program.
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It was a good thing for rural Minnesotans when Dr. John Verby of Bloomington decided to pass on a career in baseball and become a doctor.
Verby, who is responsible for a program that successfully encouraged University of Minnesota Medical School graduates to practice in rural Minnesota cities, died of Alzheimer's disease on Oct. 23 in Bloomington. He was 84.
In the 1960s, when most medical school graduates headed to cities and medical specialties, Verby found a way to divert many to rural practice.
"Partially because of his contribution, Minnesota faces less of a shortage of rural primary care physicians than any area of the country," said Dr. Macaran (Mac) Baird, who heads Family Medical and Community Health at the U's medical school.
Around 1970, Minnesota legislators complained that the school was not producing rural family practitioners, of which there was a national shortage.
Verby decided medical students needed to live and work in the rural environment for nine months, three times the customary length of rural service formerly assigned.
He figured that if the student had an apprenticeship and a mentor, a practicing rural doctor, the student would see the benefits of living and working in a rural environment.
"He's been proven correct," said Baird, once a student of Verby's at the university.
Baird said he was an excellent mentor, advising students and colleagues to balance their professional and personal lives. And in medicine, they should publish so others could learn.
Dr. Gwen Halaas, former director of the Rural Physician Associate Program, which Verby created, said the program is used in many states and overseas.
Harvard Medical School is now employing it, with a twist: Students are assigned long-term apprenticeships in urban areas.
As an athlete, Verby was a star baseball player at Johnson High School in St. Paul, Carleton College in Northfield, and at the U.
According to the book "Town Ball: The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball," the pitcher turned into one of the state's most feared hitters.
In 1945, he was contacted by nine major league scouts. In the 1940s and early 1950s, while practicing medicine, he played amateur baseball to rave reviews in Litchfield and Rochester.
He graduated from medical school in the late 1940s. During the Korean War, he served as an Army doctor in the combat zone.
After the war, he helped start Olmsted Medical Group in Rochester, Minn., leaving in 1968 to join the faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School. He retired from the university in 1993.
In addition to his wife of 60 years, he is survived by three sons, John of Burnsville, Steve of Sand Point, Idaho and Karl of Lakeville; a daughter, Ruth Davies of Florida; nine grandchildren and a great-grandson.
Services have been held.
Ben Cohen • bcohen@startribune.com
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