Nash County NcArchives Biographies.....Kornegay, Dr. Robert D. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Grace W. Turner n/a January 1, 2009, 6:53 pm Author: James Allen Whitaker MD Rocky Mount Telegram, Sunday, March 12, 1995 By James Allen Whitaker, MD Kornegay Filled Community With Good Will The recent death of Dr. Robert D. Kornegay brought an end to the distinguished career of a splendid physician. This is not just to praise Dr. Kornegay, but it is also to tell about a chapter in his life and a chapter in the history of Rocky Mount which is hardly known at all. This is a story he did not tell, I think, and it is one which, in fact, probably has not been told until now. After graduating from Davidson College and the Duke University Medical School, he entered into an internship and an Orthopedic Residency Program at the prestigious Robert Packard Memorial Hospital in Sayre, Pa. We will leave Dr. Kornegay in Europe for a moment and take a look at his hometown. Dr. L.W. Kornegay, Sr., a surgeon who owned and operated the Rocky Mount Sanitarium, was in Florida ill of cardiovascular disease from which he died. Dr. Speight Anderson, a surgeon, Dr. Kornegay's associate, was in the Army, as was Dr. Sam Way, the surgeon at the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Regional Hospital. Dr. B.C. Willis, a senior surgeon at the Park View Hospital, was ill with cardiovascular disease. He retired to Orange, Va., where he died. Dr. John Smith, an internist-cardiologist at Park View Hospital was in the army where he earned a Bronze Star at the Battle of the Bulge. Dr. Noble, a surgeon from Atlanta came to Rocky Mount in 1943 to replace Dr. Anderson at the Rocky Mount Sanitarium. In late 1943 he had a heart attack in December he and his young family returned to Atlanta where he soon died. During these trying times with the staff at Park View Hospital markedly depleted and the surgical staff at Rocky Mount Sanitarium gone, there was about to be a crisis in River City. It was neither customary nor expedient to refer routine surgery to Duke or to other hospitals. They too had problems. The situation at the Rocky Mount Sanitarium was relieved by the necessary operations being done by Dr. Badie Clark of the Carolina Clinic in Wilson, Dr. John Winstead of Greenville and by Dr. Newsome Battle of Rocky Mount. The additional work and travel to Rocky Mount was stressful for those busy surgeons. The Rocky Mount Sanitarium had other problems. Mr. Norman Bennett, the administrator of the Rocky Mount Sanitarium, was working even though he was having intermittent, unbearably severe angina heart pains. He died in December 1950, long before his time. Miss Annie Simpson, Mr. Bennett's assistant, the bookkeeper, died in 1947. The Rocky Mount Sanitarium staff remaining: Dr. Robert M. Whitley, an internist, Dr. Arthur Lee Daughtridge, a radiologist, Dr. William S. Wall and Dr. Lamonte Knowles were holding things together by hard work and long hours. As far as I know, their extraordinary service was never recognized. That was the situation which Dr. Bob Kornegay faced in 1944 when he was released by the Army to return to Rocky Mount, his legacy here was as complex as one can imagine. His desire was to continue the traditional benevolence of his father. Bob was brave, generous and uninitiated in hospital management. No one here understood the intricacies of inflation. Neither local hospital was getting reasonable outside help to care for the poor. The Rocky Mount Sanitarium's excellent Board of Trustees: Josh Horne, Arthur Tyler, J.P. Bunn, C.L. Bonney, and others were supportive and were available with advice. That relieved the strain he was under, but it was not enough. Few doctors in our time have had to operate a hospital and a large surgical practice too. From the beginning, after Bob's return to Rocky Mount, he adopted his father's well-known creed: "Never say 'no' to a patient in need." This meant that all patients, white or black, known to be without means or suspected of being poor, were admitted promptly without the embarrassment of an interview with the business office staff. Treatment was started. The Business Office came later, if at all. The quality of care was exactly the same for everyone. There were many of whom the routine bath didn't come a minute too soon. The entire area was served. Halifax County was a principal recipient of this largess. With meager payments from the local government, his policy was untenable and of course could not be sustained, at that level, by any hospital. But Bob tried with all of his heart; with his labor full time, day and night, and with his means. When the inevitable change came in 1950, he owed no explanation or excuse to anyone. He gave neither. His innate generosity of mind and spirit may not have ended but the largess ended; and then there was quiet, shocking sadness felt by many over a large area. The staff nurses and doctors felt it most of all - no free patients here ever again. Bob's personality was interesting to a marked degree. His friends knew that for story telling he had few equals. He was also a persuasive salesman. Very few knew that Bob had a strong stage presence, that he was an accomplished performer - talented enough to keep an audience laughing for two hours non-stop. I think I am the sole survivor of the group that enjoyed "the show" by Bob and Lem at Wayne Whitley cottage at Virginia Beach when the N.C. Medical Society met there in 1949 or '50. It is regrettable that in the years since then the intensity of his professional life deprived his friends of ever seeing the whole old Bob of long ago. Today, Rocky Mount Sanitarium is still an active, very modern, well staffed hospital housed in a beautiful building on spacious grounds with new owners and a new name. And it is still privately owned. Dr. Lem Kornegay works there [remainder of article not included] File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/nash/bios/kornegay10bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/ncfiles/ File size: 6.3 Kb