A three-year stint in the U.S. Navy as a general medical officer led Dr. David Glasgow to make the decision to go into pediatric medicine. “My father was a radiologist at Lloyd Nolan for many years. I probably would have gone into radiology, but my experience treating women and children in the Navy whetted my interest in pediatrics and made radiology seem sterile and boring. I do what I do, not for the money; I do it because I enjoy the long-term relationships with my patients. I’m already treating second-generation patients. I may even have one third-generation.”
A native of Birmingham, Glasgow earned his bachelor’s degree from Birmingham-Southern College and his medical degree from the Medical College of Alabama in 1968. He interned at Lloyd Nolan Hospital before joining the Navy, and he completed his pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital and UAB in 1974. He currently practices at Greenvale Pediatrics in Birmingham, one of the largest pediatric practices in the state of Alabama.
Glasgow says he has seen the field of pediatrics change in a variety of ways over the past thirty plus years. “Vaccines have made a big difference,” he said. “We see far fewer infectious disease problems such as meningitis and pneumonia thanks, in great part, to vaccines.”
Patient outcomes and physician lifestyles have also been influenced positively over the years as a result of changes implemented by hospitals and physician practices. A shift in primary care that now has sub-specialists handling hospital inpatients has freed physicians to focus more on their patients in the office. “We use doctors at Children’s Hospital to take care of children who are in the hospital. That’s been an advantage to both the patients and to us,” Glasgow said. “We still see newborns, but we’re not called to C-sections in the middle of the night anymore. The neonatologists handle those.” Also, with 12 physicians on the call schedule in his practice, Glasgow says he gets a good night’s sleep most nights. “That change has been terrific,” he said.
Most pediatricians coming into practice today have a different mindset than older doctors, and more than half of them are women, Glasgow points out. “In my day, there was an all-encompassing commitment in a small practice. With more women in the field today, the doctors are looking for a broader lifestyle and more toward 8-to-5 with limited on-call time,” he said. “I don’t blame them, I would have liked that, too, but it didn’t happen back then.”
These days, Glasgow enjoys his time away from work with his five grandchildren, ages 6 to 11 ½. He has tried, somewhat successfully he says, to share his interest in outdoor activities with them. “Their schedules have become my schedule to some degree. I attend a lot of their events — more than I did for my own children. It makes me wish I had been able to take more time with my own kids when they were that age, but there were just too many on-call nights,” Glasgow said. “With my grandchildren, it’s like I’m getting a second chance.”
Glasgow says his grandchildren are into the same things that other children are, such as team sports, computer games, TV and iPods, among other things. “These things get in the way of reality and their awareness and value of nature and the environment. Team sports are great if you keep them in perspective. Sometimes it’s the only exercise kids get, but on the other hand they are narrow in focus,” he said. “I think scouts give a broader mix of activities over a period of time as well as values that are broader than team sports.”
Through his involvement in an organization called Fresh Air Family, he encourages parents and children to get involved in outdoor activities. “Without effort, we won’t get this generation interested in the things they should be interested in,” Glasgow pointed out. “We focus on safety, accident prevention and vaccines, but this deserves our attention as well.”
Glasgow practices what he preaches with hobbies like sailing and canoeing, as well as puttering in the yard. He sails with the Birmingham Sailing Club at Logan Martin Lake, and while he says he is no longer a “whitewater person,” he regularly canoes the Cahaba River and the lake at Oak Mountain State Park. He recently took his son-in-law and grandson on a two-day canoe trip down the Burtram Canoe Trail in the Tensaw Delta in south Alabama.
Life is good these days, Glasgow says, and he offers some advice for new pediatricians. “Look for a more well-rounded life,” he said. “Pediatrics is an upbeat profession. There are some unhappy situations, of course, but most kids have good outcomes. Work is getting fun for me now; I feel like the hard part is behind me. It’s been a rewarding career.”
April 2008
