“Family Medicine Was All I Ever Wanted to Do”

“In 1975, it was $6 to visit me in the clinic. Some folks would bring me food as payment,” recalled Dr. Phillip Wagner, ABFM board-certified family physician for almost 40 years.

Back then, he was fresh out of residency and leading a rural practice in Northern California that served almost 100,000 people. Dr. Wagner would help anyone that walked through his doors, including a duck with a broken wing that he nursed back to health using popsicle stick splints. (Editor’s Note: the duck was accompanied by a human caregiver.)

From 1975 until his retirement in November 2024, Dr. Wagner provided primary care to communities in California and New Mexico, notably serving our nation’s veterans for much of that time.

Before practicing medicine, Dr. Wagner was drafted and briefly served in the U.S. Air Force. He had hoped to be a mechanic but tested well enough that the service wanted him to serve as a Russian interpreter instead. “I said you must have the wrong guy because I got a D in English,” Dr. Wagner laughed.

However, life changed in a hurry. Less than one year into his service, Dr. Wagner’s father passed away. As an only child, he was given a hardship discharge to return home and support his mother. Looking for a job, Dr. Wagner found a new career path as a firefighter in Richmond, CA.

“Firefighting develops intense interpersonal relationships, because you’re living with those people like a family,” Dr. Wagner explained. “You’re cooking for them. You’re walking into fires with them. You learn to accept people and make things work. I felt good doing that.”

During his six years as a fireman, Dr. Wagner attended college and became interested in health care. “As a junior, I was encouraged to take the MCAT by my counselor at UC Berkeley, and a few weeks later, I got an acceptance letter from UCSF. Things were different then. They’d seek you out,” Dr. Wagner explained.

He entered medical school at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1969. The specialty of family medicine was just forming, and Dr. Wagner was one of the first students from UCSF to pursue that career.

“The family practice residency I attended in Santa Rosa, CA was actually a converted general practice residency. We were trained to do surgery, anesthesia, lots of baby deliveries, and all kinds of things that are quite different from family practice today. Family medicine was all I ever wanted to do.”

After one year of residency, Dr. Wagner moved directly into his career as part of a two-person practice in the logging community of Garberville, CA.

To move forward with just a year of residency, he had to “challenge the board” which meant writing a letter to the American Board of Family Medicine explaining his medical experience and advocating that he be allowed to take the certification exam ahead of schedule. He passed in 1978, and the rest was history. (Editor’s note: This practice has since been discontinued.)

“[In Garberville], the people felt comfortable with me,” said Dr. Wagner. “When I visited the grocery, the line of people talking to me was longer than the line checking out.” His four-year practice in Garberville was diverse by design, including obstetrics care, anesthesiology and abdominal surgery.

In 1978, Dr. Wagner’s journey continued to the coastal town of Eureka, 60 miles north. After a year in emergency services, he moved to Eureka Family Practice, which saw the majority of workers’ compensation cases in a tri-county area. Dr. Wagner developed a long-standing interest in employee health and earned Occupational Medicine certification through the American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM). He would remain double boarded for decades.

In 1983, Dr. Wagner established Eureka’s Health Resource Center, a first of its kind preventive medicine center that provided nutrition services, counseling, and health screenings. He worked there for six years and then founded the Humboldt Occupational and Environmental Medicine (HOEM) clinic, an industrial medicine clinic that served local employers and employees in Northern California.

In addition to his passion for employee health, Dr. Wagner remained connected to veterans in the area. In 2001, he founded the Eureka Veteran’s Clinic, saying “I convinced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that Eureka needed a clinic. It was 250 miles to the nearest one at that time, and there was no reliable transportation. We established the veteran’s clinic that still stands there today and is now part of the VA.” The clinic serves approximately 5,000 veterans per year.

In 2003, Dr. Wagner and his wife, Eris, relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to spend time with a new crop of grandkids. He tried retirement for a year but soon felt compelled to return to work, first at the University of New Mexico Medical School as an assistant professor and later at the Albuquerque VA as Chief of Employee Health.

“After 10 years in Albuquerque, I was ready to return home to northern California. I missed seeing patients. The part of medicine I’m the strongest at is helping people cope with their illnesses and supporting them in their life,” Dr. Wagner reflected.

In 2015, Dr. Wagner received an offer to practice preventative medicine for Kaiser Hospital in Vallejo, CA. So, at the age of 72, he happily returned to the front lines of patient care.

“During the last 10 years, I’ve been in the office seeing patients. It’s a world that’s perfect for me,” Dr. Wagner said, “I believe you have to connect with patients to be happy in your practice.”

At the age of 81, Dr. Wagner has embraced a second retirement, spending free time with his wife, Eris, and keeping track of five children and six grandchildren. He still gets asked for medical advice however, as everyone knows his long history with family medicine. “I consult family members, neighbors…everyone who knows me calls if something is going on. I don’t treat anyone, but I still talk to them. That hasn’t stopped,” he said.

“I love family medicine, and my hope is that physicians will keep a personal touch with their patients. It makes a difference,” Dr. Wagner explained. “There are statistics that show patients are often prescribed medicine they don’t take, and I think it’s because they don’t have personal confidence in their physicians. The connections you make can lead to better quality of life for your patients.”

Congratulations to Dr. Wagner on his well-earned retirement, and thank you for your 50+ years of patient care and commitment to the specialty of family medicine.

Aaron Burch serves as Editorial Content Manager for the American Board of Family Medicine. He has been writing professionally in the health care field since 2014.