By Pam Johnson, Courier Senior Staff Writer:
Twenty-nine years
ago, Guilford Pediatrics received a shot in the arm when Dr. Frederic Anderson
joined the team, bringing with him years of experience and the added benefit of
having founded and run New Haven’s
Community Health Care Plan (CHCP). He served five years on the State Medical
Examining Board and many more on the American Board of Pediatrics.
Already a Guilford resident at the
time (he and his wife, Anita, moved to historic Page’s House on Durham Road in
1969), Frederic’s new job soon made him a familiar face in a small town where
everyone still knew everyone else.
“CHCP was a big
group, and I wanted to be in a smaller group. I had friends practicing here and
it was like joining a small family. You got to know people well. You’d see each
other in the community. It’s been a great pleasure to be a community physician,”
says Frederic, who formally retired June 30.
Four years ago,
Frederic moved back to his native town of Noank,
where his family’s lived since 1714. The son of a judge and grandson of a
surgeon, Frederic says a neighbor helped him decide on a career in medicine.
“I had a paper route
at 10, and I went to [a neighbor’s] house. She asked me what I was going to
be…I said I’d like to be a garbage man or a bus driver, to be behind a big
wheel. She said no, no; I should be a lawyer like my father or a doctor like my
grandfather. I thought a doctor wouldn’t have to wear good clothes! On the
strength of that, I made my decision.”
Frederic’s great
uncle was a beloved Stamford
pediatrician, largely based on the fact that “he could make animal noises
better than any other,” Frederic says.
Frederic describes
his own manner as “stern. I’m certainly less charming than some of the other
doctors here.”
He says the most
important advice he’s imparted to any parent over the years is to have their
children inoculated. After graduating from Yale
Medical School
in 1962 and completing postgraduate work at Yale, Frederic served in the Air
Force for two years and was the only pediatrician on a Wyoming base. At the time, there was no
vaccine to prevent contracting meningitis.
“I had 18 cases of
meningitis. Four died. It was a scourge of the practice, 30 years ago. When
people tell me shots are bad, I say that’s ridiculous. It’s a poor
understanding of science. Unfortunately, people trust you, but they don’t trust
you limitlessly.”
One thing Frederic
could trust during his years of practice was the cyclical process of caring for
kids. There were waves of summer camp physicals in the spring, followed by the
usual rush of kids suffering some kind of summer virus, followed by fall school
and sports physicals, winter viruses, and so on.
“We develop a lot of
immunities,” says Frederic of pediatricians in general. “I don’t remember
having a period of a lot of sickness.”
In fact, enjoying
his health (at age 71) is one reason why Frederic has decided to retire from
the work he loves.
“My dad wanted to
retire and go to sea. He built a boat and was going to launch it…the next
morning, he died. It was so sad. That’s a reason for quitting while you’re
still standing.”
He belongs to the
Pediatric Travel Club (Northeast) and, with Anita, also plans to continue
travel to her native Sweden annually. The couple will now add trips to visit
their daughter, Haideen, a San Francisco artist, and son, James, a professor of
Chinese history at University of North Carolina. The couple’s youngest son,
John, is a Madison resident and business manager.
Before Frederic
moved his family to Guilford, the Andersons resided in North Madison. Living in
Guilford allowed Frederic to participate in the town in several ways outside of
his practice. He was a deacon with First Congregational Church for 13 years, a
member of its Board of Trustees, and also served on a now-defunct town board
that dispersed “town funds for town functions,” as he recalls.
He adds he was touched
by tokens of appreciation and kind words from many during the days leading up
to his retirement. He says he leaves Guilford Pediatrics in good hands and
thanks the group for its support through the years.
As for his nearly
three decades of work as Guilford pediatrician, Frederic says with a wink,
“I’ve been here 29 years, and I’ve enjoyed almost every day of it.”
Pictured: He’s seen vaccines conquer childhood scourges including
meningitis and served on national and state medical examination boards, but Dr.
Frederic Anderson says one of the greatest rewards of his career as a
pediatrician has been being a “community physician.” The doctor retired in
June, after 29 years practicing in Guilford.
Photo by Pam
Johnson