General Practitioner of the Year
by Marisa Plumb
In 35 years of practice, Dr. Robert Steve Wilson has witnessed a revolution of the veterinary profession both in East Texas and within his own career. He has seen a shift from a large animal client base for veterinarians to a small animal focus for veterinarians, as pets became family members to many people. Dr. Wilson has also accommodated a change in his practice that now includes the exotic animals at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, Texas.
He was born in Overton, Texas, which is near to Tyler, where he both grew up and developed his career. His father, Walker Wilson, was in the cattle business, so Dr. Wilson said he always had a love for large animal issues, practice, and care.
He began pursuing his own career in animal health in the 1960s, through an education at Texas A&M University. He stayed at the institution for nine years, and in that time, he earned four degrees – a BS in agriculture with a minor in business, a BS in veterinary science, a Masters in biology, and of course, his doctor of veterinary medicine degree.
Upon graduating in 1971, Dr. Wilson said, “I was fortunate enough to come back to Tyler and work. I had two mentors – Dr. Paul Turman and Dr. Richard Hull.”
At that time, 30,000 people lived in Tyler. Over the next three decades, he would watch it grow to a population of 100,000. His practice, likewise, “went from a rural to an urban to almost a city practice now.”
Dr. Wilson described the landscape of his hometown in the 1970s as one where many people had jobs in town, as well as a piece of land in the outlying areas of Tyler.
“People had 10 to 25 cows on their land, and that was enough for them,” Dr. Wilson said.
Back then, this was the source of his and many colleagues’ work, but he said that now, “It’s just no longer the lifestyle.”
At that point, Dr. Wilson said, the dogs in his care were country dogs, and people could only make a minimal investment in their health. He said it was a wonderful time to be in veterinary medicine, and watch an evolution of dog (and other animal) ownership. He now gets to treat dogs as though they are members of the client’s family.
Practice in Tyler
Dr. Wilson said he looks at his practice in this way: “You can run your practice or you can let your practice run you.”
Dr. Wilson stressed the idea that “It is difficult but possible to be a practitioner, as well as a father, a husband, and an active community member.” For Dr. Wilson and other veterinarians in Tyler, this has required innovation and teamwork in their profession.
At the time that Dr. Wilson began practicing, his clinic’s schedule was six days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and then Sundays until noon. He and his colleagues would also receive up to five emergency calls a night, three of which they would have to respond to.
“I delivered 90 calves in one month back then,” Dr. Wilson said. “And most of them at night.”
In light of this kind of grueling schedule, Dr. Wilson and other veterinarians in Tyler decided to start an emergency clinic that would have someone on staff to care for animals all night. Rather than have someone come in for a couple of hours to take care of a problem, Dr. Wilson said the emergency clinic benefited everyone – the practitioners and the animals – who got more attention and care.
To stay active as a father, Dr. Wilson also began delegating Tuesdays as ‘kid day’. “I took every Tuesday afternoon off to spend time with my kids,” he said.
Dr. Wilson spent 19 years working in auction barns, testing cows for TB and pregnancy. He said he gave this up as soon as it interfered with his ability to follow his younger daughter’s cheerleading competitions.
A Range of Challenges
Dr. Wilson truly has experienced the life of a mixed practitioner and a mixed practice owner. He said that this is a great way to continually encounter a wide spectrum of people and professional challenges. He said he prefers to know a little about a lot of things than a lot about only one thing.
Ten years ago, Dr. Wilson partnered with Dr. Ann Buchanan and he said they have been a very successful team. Since she is “an outstanding internist” and he focuses on orthopedics, this further diversified his practice.
But perhaps nothing changed the face of Dr. Wilson’s career more than the offer he got three years ago from the Caldwell Zoo to fill its veterinarian position.
Dr. Wilson said, “Since I had been on my own since ’71, I couldn’t imagine going to work for anyone, so we had to work something out.”
The balance they struck was a kind of partnership between his practice and the zoo, whereby he would do much of the zoo’s veterinary work, and his associates would fill in where needed.
“Now this was a real experience for someone who’d been in practice for so long,” Dr. Wilson said. “Before I didn’t look at birds or reptiles, but now it’s a large part of what I do.”
Dr. Wilson made many phone calls, consulted many textbooks, and attended seminars in order to gain the new body of knowledge he needed to treat all the species housed at the zoo. He said that he joined an online listserv of international zoo veterinarians, where people post and answer questions with great generosity and expertise.
The transition in his work gave Dr. Wilson some fears, but he said that he learned so much, that it also reinvigorated his small animal practice.
When asked if it was different to treat an animal owned by an individual versus an animal that is more publicly owned, Dr. Wilson said he quickly learned that there is not much difference between a zookeeper and a small animal owner.
“They spend so much time with those animals – they watch them and care for them, and when they come to me and say there’s something wrong with a lion, or a cougar, or a giraffe, you bet your bottom dollar something’s going on,” he said. “They really care about that animal.”
For this reason, he said, a practitioner’s decisions are never strictly medical – emotional decisions occur at the same time.
A Community Effort
“This award was the most humbling thing that ever happened to me – and I don’t humble easily,” Dr. Wilson said. “You don’t get this award by something you do on your own, you get this award because of the people around you. All my life there have been wonderful people around me.”
He said that one thing that Tyler has, that not every town has, is a very strong relationship among veterinarians. The emergency clinic that Tyler veterinarians started twenty years ago fostered their strong relationship.
“We don’t have any competitors, we just have colleagues and that’s the way we look at it in Tyler,” he said.
He has also mentored many new veterinarians in Tyler, by hiring dozens of veterinarians straight out of school.
In this way, he said, he gets to learn as much as he teaches, as the new graduates come to work with energy and new ideas.
Dr. Wilson came to understand that throughout school, a community is provided to you. But once you are in the world, it is your own responsibility to search out a community, and work hard enough to find the group of people that is right for you. He said that up until the time you are forced to do this, “you live in your own cocoon.”
Dr. Wilson’s practice serves as a starting community for veterinarians new to Tyler. He also said his Bible study group turned out to be a source of great relationships for him in Tyler.
He has always sought opportunity to get involved with things outside of veterinary medicine. He has been working with Children’s Village – a home for abused and neglected kids – for 30 years. A foundation supported primarily by private donations, Children’s Village provides a safe loving environment for kids. Dr. Wilson has led the annual hunting outing for the organization for 14 years.
Dr. Wilson provides mentorship to others as it was provided to him. He said his mother was very involved in his school activities, and his father was the same way, getting him and his brothers involved in Boy Scouts.
Dr. Wilson stressed that he couldn’t not have gotten the General Practitioner of the Year Award on his own and said: “Behind every successful man is a wonderful woman. For over 35 years my wife Charlotte has been my supporter and caregiver.”
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