After about four decades working as a physician, mostly in Jefferson County, Dr. Indu Patel has retired.
While she closed her practice at 7105 Metropolitan Blvd. in Barnhart at the end of December, Patel, 76, of Festus isn’t hanging up her stethoscope anytime soon.
“My plan is to move to Atlanta, Ga., where some of my family is,” said Patel, an internal medicine specialist. “I’m going to do some free clinic work and also work with Doctors Without Borders (an international charitable medical care organization).”
Her post-practice plans reflect her caring personality, said Kenneth Loyd, one of her longtime patients.
“She’s a personable doctor,” said Loyd, 83, of Barnhart. “She’s not in a hurry. She takes her time with you. She visits you in the hospital. She cares about patients. She has a good way about her in dealing with her patients.”
Patel said she has devoted her life to medicine.
“I never got married. I was married to medicine,” she said. “I like taking care of people, talking to people, making sure they’re cared for.”
She said patients like Loyd have appreciated her attentiveness.
“One time I had a patient at St. Anthony’s Hospital (now Mercy Hospital South in south St. Louis County) who got really sick and I sent him to the ICU,” she said. “When I visited him in his room – he had talked about me to his roommate in the room – when I walked in and said, ‘Hello, Oscar,’ his roommate said, ‘Oh, this is the great Dr. Patel!’ My patient said, ‘St. Peter wanted me, but Dr. Patel won’t let me go.’”
Loyd also praised Patel for her willingness to treat patients whether or not they could pay.
“I’ve helped some by giving free services when they could not pay. I’d write it off,” Patel said, adding that her main objective is to help patients feel better.
Amber Spreitler, who has worked for Patel for 22 years, said the doctor’s concern for others is obvious.
“She cares about her patients,” said Spreitler, the office manager. “She cares about her staff as if it’s her own family.”
Patel said she earned her medical degree in 1971 from B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad, India. “My father was the main culprit to get me to go to medical school,” she said. “He wanted to be a doctor, but because of financial considerations, he could not. He inspired me to be a doctor.”
After earning her medical degree in India, she wanted to further her medical education. She considered going to England for further training, but ended up in Baltimore, Md., completing her internship and residency during the mid- to late-1970s at hospitals in that city.
“In 1980, I joined the U.S. Air Force,” Patel said. “They were in need of doctors. I was commissioned as a captain as an internal medicine specialist. From 1980 to 1984, I was assigned to Scott Medical Center at Scott Air Force Base (in Illinois).”
Patel said she found it difficult to treat patients the way she wanted in the Air Force, so she left.
“In the military, you had to answer to your superiors,” she said.
Patel said she was working at Scott Medical Center when a patient from Jefferson County urged her to start a practice in Barnhart.
“Homer Price of Price Enterprises asked, ‘Where are you going to go?’” she recalled. “I said I didn’t know, but I liked the Midwest. He said, ‘Why don’t you come to Barnhart?’ I never heard of Barnhart.”
But, she checked out the town, as well as Jefferson Memorial Hospital (now Mercy Hospital Jefferson in Crystal City) and was impressed.
“I liked the area because it reminded me of Baltimore, with all the hills,” Patel said.
She started her practice in Barnhart in August 1984 at a site on Marriott Lane. After five years there, she had a new office built to her specifications at 7105 Metropolitan Blvd. and worked there from 1989 until Dec. 31. Motorists traveling along I-55 between Imperial and Barnhart can see the unique building from the interstate.
“It (the building looks like) a combination of Indian culture and American culture,” she said. “A patient called it ‘Dr. Patel’s castle.’”
She said it took some time to build up her practice, but eventually she was seeing a couple of thousand patients per year.
Patel said she is still interested in treating the sick but decided to end her practice because of frustration with modern-day medical red tape.
“Medical care has gone into the insurance control,” she said. “There is a lot of stress because of this. It’s a lot of stress to take care of patients because of insurance.”
Patel said she wants to alert her patients they still have time to take care of their medical records at her office.
“If any of my patients want their records transferred to a new physician, the office will remain open until Feb. 28,” she said.
In addition to her volunteer work, Patel said she intends to do some traveling.
“My dream trip is to travel to see Australia, New Zealand and Fiji,” she said. “I also would like to see the pyramids in Egypt and to go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower.”