To the editor:
I am a Cancer patient. A survivor for almost seven years. I attribute a great deal of my successful treatment to the most giving, caring, and compassionate doctor I have ever known. Dr. Clyde Michael Jones has been my touchstone for all these years…until last week. On February 23rd the news that Dr. Jones would no longer be associated with the Baptist Memorial Hospitals (seven of them), with no notice or reason given to the hundreds of patients who depend on his excellent care, was released and spread through our community.
Jason Little, CEO at Baptist Memorial in Memphis, relieved Dr. Jones of all his associations with the various hospitals he has served. There was no time or opportunity given for Dr. Jones to contact his patients, to reassure them, perhaps offer recommendations for their future care. No Grace! I am heartbroken, so too, are all that I have spoken with. Those who have tried to find answers. Those who, when they tried to reach Jason Little, were told (by a sympathetic Cynthia Bradford) that he was “out of town.”
Dr. Jones, with 49 years of experience in Hematology and Oncology, through conferences and personal research, was constantly seeking to learn new ways to help the people under his care. He never wants anyone to hurt. He never gives up, and he instilled courage and hope in so many. I am devastated. I believe my deepest feelings, my gratitude, my grief, are shared by many, many others.
Right now, a dear friend is lying in the Baptist Memorial Hospital New Albany feeling lost and abandoned. The relationship, the trust she and others received by this kind, gentle, quiet, and supremely compassionate man, Dr. Clyde Michael Jones has been swept away without any acknowledgement of what this means to so many, without any explanation. It is a nightmare to patients like my friend, struggling to find meaning in her new situation.
It is true that I have found the care by the nursing staff at Baptist Memorial was, and continues to be, of high quality. But the doctor now assigned to replace the irreplaceable Dr. Jones, a Dr. Benton Wheeler, may have fine credentials, but he does not KNOW the people he is now responsible for. Did he follow or oversee my chemotherapy treatments, reassuring me that I would get better; did he keep a close, personal watch over the condition of my bones? Did he do the same for the hundreds who came from everywhere to be treated by this man because of his excellent reputation?
When I was sent to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the oncologist I saw there told me, “You could not have anyone better to care for you.” I weep to think that Dr. Jones will no longer be my physician, my friend. I don’t want anyone else! My heart is broken.
Sincerely,
Barbara (Babs) Stepp
New Albany, Mississippi
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