Lifestyles

The boy who waited became the doctor who helped them see

Submitted photo

LEWISTOWN - Alan Gordon was five years old when his father went away for cataract surgery in 1952.

He was gone for three weeks.

To a boy that age, it felt like forever.

The operation was only the beginning. Months passed before his father received a contact lens. He struggled with it, but it allowed him to see again. Gordon learned early how much a person's sight could affect an entire family.

Nearly three decades later, Gordon came to Lewistown as an ophthalmologist. He stayed for 46 years.

Now Dr. Alan D. Gordon, who helped introduce small-incision cataract surgery to central Pennsylvania, will retire after 46 years in Lewistown. He'll turn 80 early next year. Back trouble and a bad leg have made practice harder. Medicine in Lewistown also bears little resemblance to the profession he entered in 1980.

"It's been an exciting career," Gordon said. "I'm grateful to the patients who put their trust in me. It's been an honor."

Before choosing ophthalmology, Gordon studied medicine in Europe and Newark and trained in obstetrics in Albany, New York. An overnight conversation at the Albany hospital changed his direction.

Gordon grew up in New York City and New Jersey, but visits with his grandparents outside Wilkes-Barre gave him a preference for the country. He admired television doctors such as "Marcus Welby, M.D." and "Dr. Kildare," although he remembered "Ben Casey" as his earliest idol,

He dreamed of becoming a doctor in a medium-sized town.

At Nasson College in Maine, Gordon studied biology. During a six-month program in Vienna, he audited history of medicine classes at the University of Vienna. The lectures were in German. He learned enough of the language to follow them.

When admission to an American medical school remained uncertain, his family physician suggested Italy. The University of Bologna admitted Gordon on the condition that he pass an Italian-language examination within about three months. He did, and studied there for roughly a year and a half before transferring to the New Jersey College of Medicine, now part of Rutgers University.

Gordon initially chose obstetrics and gynecology. The Albany program didn't offer the training in high-risk pregnancy and gynecologic endocrinology that had interested him. One night, a recently arrived ophthalmologist brought his pregnant wife to the hospital. Both men stayed awake through the night, and Gordon spoke about his dissatisfaction. The doctor invited him to visit his eye clinic.

The clinic visit returned him to the field he had first encountered through his father's cataract.

Gordon completed his one-year obligation, worked for a year as an emergency room physician, and then trained in ophthalmology at the Guthrie Clinic in Sayre. By then, he had a wife and two children. He searched Pennsylvania and southern New York for a place to practice.

Lewistown had an opening. A local ophthalmologist became ill and stopped practicing several months before Gordon arrived. The office remained, along with patients who needed care.

"I chose Lewistown because it was a ready-made practice," Gordon said.

He opened on Highland Avenue in 1980 and later moved to the LeMed Multispecialty Building. Gordon envisioned eventually adding a partner and building a two-doctor practice.

Cataract surgery had changed dramatically by the time Gordon reached Lewistown.

Gordon and a Harrisburg ophthalmologist introduced small-incision cataract surgery to central Pennsylvania. Gordon said the older operation required an incision extending about one-third of the way across the front of the eye. Surgeons closed it with sutures, which could break down and distort the cornea.

A smaller incision reduced those problems. The technique became the standard, Gordon said, and lens implants continued to improve. Later versions could provide bifocal correction or address astigmatism.

His Lewistown practice offered eye-muscle surgery and corneal transplants. He repaired retinal tears and performed glaucoma procedures. In the early 2000s, his office brought newer treatments for macular degeneration and retinal vascular disease to the area.

"Probably the biggest change I've seen is the development of new medications," Gordon added.

Providing that care sometimes required building a place for it.

Gordon said obtaining specialized ophthalmic equipment through the hospital's capital-request system proved difficult. Treatment there was also expensive for uninsured patients, including members of the Amish community. Some traveled to Florida or Mexico for surgery.

Gordon sought a state certificate of need for an independent facility. An Amish man went to Harrisburg to testify in support of the proposal. Gordon later opened the Mifflin County Community Surgical Center, offering eye operations and pain-management procedures.

When it opened, the center reduced a patient's cataract surgery cost by about $1,500 compared with the hospital, Gordon said.

His work also carried him far beyond Lewistown. During construction of the center, he joined a two-week medical trip to Ecuador. Three ophthalmologists operated in an old sugar refinery with help from other workers and Peace Corps translators.

They worked from dawn until dusk. Some patients could barely make out the largest image on an eye chart. Gordon later spent two weeks in Honduras performing eye-muscle surgery through the same organization.

At home, medicine once demanded a similar constancy. Early in his career, Gordon took emergency calls every night. When ophthalmologists attended professional meetings, doctors in Lewistown, Huntingdon and State College rotated emergency coverage. One remained behind and handled eye emergencies across all three counties.

"It was pretty busy covering three counties," Gordon said.

Gordon retired from most surgery in 2021, after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted medical care. He continued to see patients. Gordon also cited changes in insurance networks and the growth of large health systems as reasons his private practice has slowed. He said some services he once provided are no longer available in Lewistown.

Some employees remained with Gordon for as long as 40 years. Generations of patients returned to the same office, placing their eyesight in the hands of the doctor who had once waited for his own father to come home.

Soon Gordon will leave that office for the last time.

The boy remembered three weeks as forever. The doctor gave Lewistown 46 years.