Cash-only Village Doctor Coming To Winter Harbor

WINTER HARBOR — Several experiences have nourished Dr. Benjamin Newman’s dream of being the local doctor who is both physician and friend to his patients.

Dr. Benjamin Newman’s medical practice will be a family affair. Helping will be his wife, Sharon Ryan, and their German shepherd, Schultz vonRyan, who is trained in pet therapy.—STAFF PHOTO BY JACQUELINE WEAVER

There were the years of practicing medicine in and out of the Armed Services.

And there were those conversations he couldn’t help but listen to while driving a Yellow Cab in Philadelphia before he attended medical school.

“I would hear people talking in the back, complaining about their doctors,” Newman said.

All of which have brought him to Winter Harbor with the hope of practicing medicine the way he thinks it should be practiced.

Newman plans to begin seeing patients in early November.

And, although he is a board certified family physician, he prefers to see patients 12 years old and up.

“I never wanted to be anything else but a doctor,” said Newman, whose brother Miles is also a physician. “I’m going to be the doctor you used to have, or always wanted to have.”

Newman is decisive about certain components of the practice, which would be characterized today as a “micro-practice” with low overhead and few middlemen.

One of the most important facets is that he believes in taking the time to help make his patients healthier as well as treating their illnesses.

For this reason, Newman said he will see patients on a cash basis only, avoiding the morass of paperwork and approvals required by insurance companies.

The average cost per visit for an established patient will be about $75, although Newman said the fee may be negotiable if necessary.

He will make house calls when patients are very sick and it is impossible for the patient to come to him.

He won’t wear a white coat.

He won’t whiz in and out of the examination room.

“I am not going to see 30 or more people a day, rushing in and out of each patient’s time,” Newman said in a statement explaining his patient care philosophy. “You deserve my individual, undivided attention for us to approach the concept of wellness.”

“I do not accept or file insurance claims for many reasons,” he continues. “I feel that physicians should make decisions for patient care based upon medical judgment, not bottom-line oriented, business-based decisions.”

Newman and his wife, Sharon Ryan, settled on Winter Harbor because they are very familiar with the area and the local population.

As a Naval reservist, he spent several weeks here every year dating back to 1975. And in 1998, he was stationed here for two years.

The couple own a home on Summer Harbor Road. His office will be in a rented house on Main Street next door to Two Sisters Bakery and Café.

The kitchen of the leased house is being renovated into a small laboratory. The entryway will be the waiting area. The living room and dining room will serve as his office and examination rooms.

Newman said over coffee at Two Sisters Oct. 10 that he likes the people who live here and finds they are very similar to the sailors he has taken care of in the military.

“The population is working class, hard-working, good people,” he said. “These are seagoing people.”

Newman’s excitement about the new venture is palpable.

“I’m chasing a dream,” he said. “It’s either going to work or it’s not going to work.”

Newman retired from the Navy in May 2008 after a 44-year military career that also included many years in private practice in Philadelphia and Altamonte Springs, Fla.

A 1966 graduate of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Newman did his internship at Abington Memorial Hospital in Abington, Pa.

His first military assignment after medical school was with Destroyer Squadron II as the staff medical officer.

Newman was then deployed to South Vietnam, where he served with the 3rd Marine Division.

He said one of his most memorable experiences in Vietnam was rescuing downed pilots with a search and rescue crew air crew off the coast of North Vietnam.

After completing his initial active duty, Newman was affiliated with the Naval Reserve and was, among other duties, in command of the 4th Medical Battalion, 4th FSSG.

He returned to active duty during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm as a Marine expeditionary force surgeon and served in the combat zone.

Newman later was integral to medical support in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

He elected to remain on active duty after the initial Gulf War conflict and was assigned as the senior medical officer at Naval Security Group Activity in Winter Harbor.

Newman returned to sea duty aboard the USS Bataan, which was deployed to Afghanistan six hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

He was in charge of the medical team that, for the first time since Vietnam, treated combat injured personnel from the battlefield.

Capt. Newman was then asked by the Commander, Second Fleet/Striking Fleet Atlantic to join his staff as fleet surgeon.

During this tour he was integral to the development of unique NATO procedures and processes as well as implementation of the U.S. Navy Fleet Response Plan and support to the Global War on Terror.

Newman then served as the operational force liaison officer and special assistant to the commander at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va.

His personal awards include, among others, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Joint Achievement Medal and dozens of unit and campaign awards.

Newman also is a licensed single engine and helicopter pilot.

He and Sharon, formerly the medical coding coordinator for Children’s Specialty Group in Norfolk, Va., have two sons — Benjamin Newman, an attorney in Orlando, Fla., and Lt. j.g. Theodore Newman, a nurse stationed at Naval Hospital Bremerton in Washington state.

Newman said he had many job offers after retiring from the Navy, but the prospects “didn’t flip my switch.”

He is not blind to the financial and other risks of setting up a family practice here and readily admits much of it will be trial and error.

“If I can’t practice my dream,” Newman says simply, “I’m not going to practice medicine.”

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