Trio of doctors celebrate anniversary

About 35 years ago, two newly-minted doctors and their attending said they wanted to go into practice together across from the former Allen Bennett Hospital site.
Since then, Family Medicine Mountain View has grown.

“We went through the match program – we all matched family practice, the Greenville program. When we left the program, Tom (Ballard) and I came here with Dr. Phil Snell, who’s deceased now,” said Dr. Graham Lawrence. “He was one of our attendings and he wanted to go back into practice. I remember meeting on this lot in 1978 and saying, ‘We want to build a practice here.’ I mentioned it to my wife and she said, ‘Y’all are not going to do that. That’s some pipe dream.’ Here we are.”

Ballard and Lawrence founded the practice, along with Phil Snell in 1979. Bill Byars joined the practice three years later, after serving as an U.S. Army doctor in Germany.

“We didn’t really know better,” Ballard said, laughing. “We borrowed money, built a building and came in. Our first day we saw 12 patients. We didn’t know to worry.”
Fresh out of medical school, they were used to being poor, Lawrence said.

Now they see about 25 each daily. The practice has also grown to five total physicians and a physicians assistant.

When they opened, they charged $14 for an office visit.

“The doctor’s clinic across the street was $12,” Lawrence said. “They thought we were extravagant, charging $14.”

Other changes in the field have come rapidly, too – about 80 percent of medicine they prescribe today wasn’t around when they first became doctors, Ballard said.
They’re all frequently asked if retirement is on their minds, Lawrence said.

“Right now, I’ve got too much energy to retire, still enjoy doing what I do,” he said. “I’ll be 63 this summer, but I plan on doing this until I’m 65 and probably go – Lord willing, you never know with health – halftime for a number of years. We’ll see. It’s been a privilege to be here all these years.

Ballard and Byars met in line at freshman orientation at Wofford in 1972. The two became good friends and lived together while attending the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Lawrence also went to Wofford before transferring to Emory. He and Ballard did their residencies together at Greenville Family Practice.

Byars didn’t grow up longing to be a doctor.

“I went to Wofford thinking I was going to be a professional chemist. Got halfway through, did some research one summer and realized I was bored,” he said. “I changed to pre-med chemistry.”

Ballard was also a chemistry major at Wofford.

“After being in lab five days a week for a semester or two, I decided that was not what I wished to do. You were isolated in a lab, running tests. I looked around to see, I like science and what can I do with it? I felt like medicine would allow my scientific interests and still have a more varied day-to-day life.”

Lawrence grew up fighting his medical destiny. His father was an OB/GYN in Florence.

“He believed that being a doctor was the only thing worth being. He always just presumed that’s what I was going to do. I wasn’t sure. I would tell him I was thinking about, at one time, economics. I said no, not that. Then physics and I said, no, not that. Then after the third year at Emory, they had a program at MUSC – they’d accept a few students every year after three years of college that hadn’t graduated. I decided, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ll send in my application and see what happens.’ I sent it in and got accepted and said, ‘Well, I guess this is what I’m supposed to do.’”

The practice will have a “modest celebration” at Lake Robinson for friends and family. And after that?  

“I’m going to be on the beach somewhere,” Ballard said, smiling. “I might go sell snow cones on the beach.”

kjones@greercitizen.com | 877-2076