After 60 years of general practice and maintaining board certification from 1976 to 2003, Dr. Peter Ditoro might be expected to retire. However, at 86, he has no plans to stop working.
“My retirement is up to my malpractice insurance,” Ditoro said with a laugh. “When they refuse to cover me, I’ll retire. Why should I quit? I’m healthy, and I enjoy seeing my patients every day. I’d like to work in my office a little longer.”
The son of Italian immigrants from San Giacomo, Italy, Ditoro was born in Pennsylvania in 1921. His mother, Concetta, and father, Guiseppe, had 11 children, and they taught them to work hard and do their best. His father, a laborer around the coal mines, encouraged his children to have a better life than he had. Even though neither parent could read or write English, all the children either went to college or joined the military and led successful lives.
From these humble beginnings, Ditoro attended the University of Alabama, where he received a bachelor of science in biology and chemistry in November 1942. After graduating, he attended Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he studied both homeopathic and allopathic medicine, graduating in March 1946. Having attended school year-round because of World War II, he was only 25 when he became a doctor.
“We were one of the last classes to graduate that was required to serve an internship in the military. I served my fifteen-month internship at St. Luke’s Hospital.” This internship was a rotating internship where he delivered babies, learned and performed surgeries and did just about everything. Following the internship, Ditoro joined the U.S. Air Force and was sent to England for two years, from 1947 to 1949, and was there during the Berlin Blockade, one of the first crises of the Cold War.
Ditoro came home and began his first practice in Pittston, Pennsylvania. Then, in 1951, he moved to West Pittston, where his office was in his home. He practiced medicine in Pennsylvania until 1967 when he moved to Huntsville, Alabama, and became Huntsville Hospital’s first emergency room doctor. After working in the ER for a year, he began his own general practice where he made house calls, delivered babies and performed surgeries. He still has that practice today, and while he no longer sees patients at the hospital, he cares for patients in his office four days a week.
What is the biggest difference between practicing medicine today and when he first began his career 60 years ago?
“When I began,” Ditoro said, “I was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The only time I wasn’t on call was when I was out of town. There were no beepers or cell phones. If I went to the movies, I had to tell the answering service where I would be, give them the number and tell the usher where I was sitting in case I received a call.”
He also said that being a doctor was more demanding of the doctor’s time. “I had office hours at night and on Saturdays. I made six to eight house calls each day and delivered babies at home. An office call was $2, and house calls were $3. Now office calls are around $50, and of course, there are no house calls.”
When discussing the most positive change in the practice of medicine, Ditoro answered quickly: technology and medication. “During my early years, we had no blood pressure medicine and antibiotics were just coming into use, and they were sulfa drugs. Penicillin was only available through injection. Then it was available orally, but had to be taken four times per day. Now, some medications can be taken once each day or even once per week.”
He sees some negative changes as well. “We have a lack of closeness with our patients today. When we made house calls, we were where they lived, in their homes. We really knew who they were.”
Ditoro works in his office, plants a garden every summer, has carpentry projects and works out at the gym four to five days each week. Most people who hear that he is 86 don’t believe it. They usually think he’s 65 or 70. He shared some of the secrets to his longevity.
“I ate a lot of spaghetti and meatballs,” he joked at first. “Seriously, the Lord has blessed me. I come from a healthy, hardworking family. ... My mother never bought butter or bacon, never put a salt shaker on the table, and we only ate meat, chicken or fish once a week. … I also work on watching my weight and my posture. For an 86-year-old, I have good posture. I think I’ve had a great effect on my family. They are all hard workers and try to stay healthy.”
December 2007
