Lessons I Learned From A 110 Year Old Atlanta Doctor - The Spark Plug
Posted by myideas1 on July 9th, 2008
Dr. Leila Denmark was born on February 1, 1898 in Bulloch County, Georgia. The year she was born, the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 49 years. Currently, she is the 67th oldest person in the world, according to the short list of super-centenarians (people at least 110 years old or older.)
Dr. Denmark was the 3rd female graduate of the Medical College of Georgia in 1928. She was one of the first female pediatricians in Atlanta and practiced medicine for more than 70 years. It has been estimated that Dr. Denmark treated more than 250,000 patients during her distinguished career. She is credited with being the co-developer of the Whooping Cough vaccine, which saved countless lives of children in the early part of the 20th Century.
When I first met Dr. Denmark in 2002, she was 104 years old, and had just closed her medical practice the previous year, at 103. At that time, she was the oldest practicing physician in America.
Over the years, I’ve learned many valuable life lessons by staying in contact with this legendary Atlanta doctor. Some of them prompted me to do further investigation, and I incorporate many of them into my daily life. Coming from Dr. Denmark, they were even more powerful because she has seen many years come and go. Here are a few lessons she shared with me…
- Don’t abuse your body with junk food
- Love what you do
- Drinking cow’s milk is dangerous
- Do your best to help others
- Too much sugar is not a good thing
- A sense of humor is very important for longevity
- As a doctor, it’s important to find the root cause of a problem
- Never bring a child into the world unless you’re willing to take care of them
- Children are not getting parental guidance and it’s wrecking this nation
- Kids in daycare are deprived of attention and catch too many illnesses
- We need to think about everything we eat and drink
- Let’s do is easier than do
- Anything you have to do is work and anything you love to do is play
- During the Great Depression, 11,000 of America’s 25,000 banks closed
- Never raise your hand or your voice to a child
- Parenting has gone out of style
- Children and adults should eat fruit instead of drinking fruit juices
- Drink only water
- The greatest change she’s seen in her lifetime has been the neglect of little children
This is what works for me: My wife and I no longer buy milk. She makes it from scratch using dates and almonds. I don’t buy fruit juices because once the juice has been pasteurized, the vitamin and mineral content have both been greatly reduced. I’ve cut back on my junk food consumption tremendously, and I no longer look at day care facilities the same.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Wow! Still a practising physician at over 100 years old? Very good things she shared with you. I’ll copy down those tips and learn to practise them! Thanks for sharing.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:41 am
I really enjoyed this! What a woman of wisdom. The neglect of children really makes me sad. I am with her on the milk too. These are the real basics and she has had them down all these years. Amazing.
July 10th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Heidi and Foongpc: Isn’t it amazing? We feel honored to have met her. My husband just called her up one day and she opened her home to us. Patients were still dropping by to sit at her feet and receive some age-old, natural wisdom when it came to taking care of their kids. At 104, she was still living alone, she now lives with her daughter.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Great article, thanks for sharing this with us- it’s a real treat to hear about someone as amazing as Dr Denmark!
July 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I bow my head! Here’s one lady who has shown to everyone that you can take your life to the upper most limit and win. I have just started blogging at the age of ninety and people are amazed. They should hear of Dr. Denmark.
Can I post this article on my blog which celebrates the lives of people like Dr. Denmark? I would give due acknowledgment. Please!
Thanks a lot
July 10th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
What a terrific inspiration! I hope I can still be productive when I’m 100-plus!
July 10th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
You and me both LuckyGirl! GrannyJulia, I’d be honored for you to share this article with whomever you please.
Congrats to you for all that you’ve accomplished at 90!
July 12th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Great article!
July 12th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Quite informative and inpiring post. Thanks for sharing. God bless.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:09 am
What an inspirational post.
What I like best about it is that you’ve formed a relationship with someone you admire, and you’ve applied what you’ve learned from her.
I also like that you admire a woman. Too often the accomplishments of women are overlooked or downplayed.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Linda, thank you for your comments regarding Dr. Denmark. A large portion of my life is spent learning about successful women and their contributions to humanity. I’m one man who believes that women truly make things happen and I’m better for it. In fact, my most requested motivational presentation is…Women Make Things Happen!
—”The Spark Plug”
July 13th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Worked until 103… wow. My ol’ man is about half her age, and he doesn’t even mow the lawn!
July 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I have three teenage boys 18,17,15 and I took them to Dr. Denmark until she retired. She was 92 when I took my oldest son and she spent an hour answering all my questions about being a new mom. My boys love fruits & vegetables and I strongly believe it’s because of the diet she recommended when they were babies. She’s a very special lady!
July 15th, 2008 at 11:23 am
“During the great depression 11,000 of America’s 25,000 banks closed” How did this help?
July 15th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Great question Ketan!
The Great Depression has been referred to as the greatest economic crisis in modern times. Being the historian that I am, I always look for opportunities to discover a little bit more about history. After I learned that Dr. Denmark was a practicing physician during the Depression, I decided to investigate this period in time a little further.
After further investigation, it made me really appreciate the sacrifices my fellow Americans made to move this country forward. It also made me understand much more clearly that we don’t need a whole lot to live a bountiful life. After all is said and done, it all comes back to FAMILY. People stuck together during that period of shared suffering probably more than any other time in history.
I now have an even greater appreciation of everything around me.
Thanks for your question.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I am only 18 and am thankful to have already learned many of these lessons from my parents. I will take the rest to heart. Thanks so much for sharing!
July 16th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with Dr. Denmark. She is a very blessed individual to have lived for so many years. I am sure that over all of those years she has blessed the lives of many others, thus earning her longevity.
Dr. Denmark’s pearls of wisdom are also to be paid close attention to. She’s got the goods, and the years to prove it!
NOTE:
Thank you so much for considering me one of your top sites. It is an honor to sit in that spot on your site.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:23 am
It’s my pleasure Shelia…besides, you’ve earned it!
July 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Katherine, yes…Dr. Denmark is a VERY special lady. We feel honored to have met her. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:47 am
“Kids in daycare are deprived of attention and catch too many illnesses”
I was planning to enroll my child in a day care center, but my husband does not want to because of these issues. Great article.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:29 am
Thank you for sharing the list of Life.
I am so blessed and grateful to be able to stay home with my children and raise them. I will most definitely cut back on my sugar intake. My kids are not allowed processed foods; now I will not as well.
Very wise…
July 25th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I was just thinking about Dr. Denmark today and was talking about her to a colleague of mine. She was my pediatrician when I was 7 in 1978. My infant brother was raised on her philosophy. He’s now about to have his first child.
Even though I was only 7 when I knew her, I remember her quite vividly –tiny woman with hair in a bun who was a force to be reckoned with. I talked to my mother tonight about her and she reminded me that she:
- Only charged $4 per office visit when everyone else was charging $25-35 in 1978, when we were her patients (I think it maxed out to $8 when she retired).
- Would perform triage herself, as she had no office staff. Her policy was the sickest and newest born went first. When there was a newborn she would come out and say “Sorry, I know you’ve been waiting a long time, this one just hatched and I don’t want her in the room with these sick kids, so I am seeing her next.”
- There were no appointments. You just drove there when you needed her and waited your turn. I remember that I loved to go there because her office was attached to her big white old Georgia house and was on some land with lots of oak trees, so I would just play outside under the trees while we waited.
- Would spend a great deal of time with each patient and would actually teach mothers how to care for their children, how to examine them, what to look for, what to feed them, etc… again for $4 per visit.
- Closed her office every year for the month of September and went TENT camping in the mountains. Remember — she was 80 when we were her patients.
- Only ever drank water, her whole life.
As I child, I knew she was remarkable. I remember driving home from her office and my mother just going on and on about her accomplishments. While Dr. Denmark was certainly modest, she always made sure to make the women she worked with (the mothers) felt empowered, and she did so by sharing her life with them. Now, as a 37-year old woman and mother, I look back and think how fortunate I was to have been in her presence for the year we lived in Atlanta. In my young mind, I learned “Women can do whatever they want to, even if people don’t want to let them participate” and “Age means nothing — it’s how you live your life and how good you are at your craft that matters”.
I feel so blessed to have known her.
Everyone in my family has her book. My mother made sure to send us all copies. (I remember my mother purchasing her book in 1978). I encourage everyone to purchase it, read it, and give it as a gift to anyone you know who is having a baby.
I wish I lived in Atlanta. I would be sitting at her feet too.