
Dr. Paul Viser said he will get to enjoy kicking back much more often now, but without his lab coat, since he has retired after 37 years in practice.
Courtesy photo | Laura Harris
Viser ends long
medical career
… well, sort of
The long career of Sampson County physician Dr. Paul Edward Viser recently saw the final chapter of his primary care medical practice come to a close, a new life of retirement opening before him.
“With mixed feelings, I have recently decided to retire from my primary care medical practice,” Viser wrote in his retirement letter to patients, friends and colleagues. “Our final day will be Dec. 20. These 37 years have been filled with doctor-patient relationships which have have been a treasured part of my life. Some of you have been with me from the earliest years, and we have grown old together.”
It’s those close-knit relationships built over the length of his career that Viser said was the hardest to let go off when finally making his decision to retire. After almost four decades of forming lifelong connections, he said he now looks forward to spending more time with his family.
“My mother always told me that the toughest decisions you’ll make in life are between two good things,” Viser said. “In this case, the the two good things were these long-term relationships with people, a lot of whom I’ve known for over 30 years, and my family. I really hate to give that up, I really do. When I see one of those patients, it’s like I said in my letter, we’ve walked through life and got old together. That’s really true, I mean, if you know somebody real well for 30 years, you go through some things. So I can’t say enough about how I’m going to miss that.”
Even now, after being retired over a month, Viser still wrestles with thoughts of whether he should have retired, but visions of being with family gives him clarity.
“Sometimes I wonder if this is the time to step down, but I am drawn now to spend more time with family,” Viser’s letter noted. “Diane, my wife of 43 years, has been patient through it all. Ellen and Cowden, Mark and Kat, Aaron and Initha — they live elsewhere, and I itch to see them often. Oh and just ask me about my sweet grandchildren, Paul and Lottie!”
Viser’s children reside in three different areas, which is why he said it’s been so hard to see them. Not wanting to miss even more of their life-changing developments as he gets older is ultimately what gave him the final push into retirement.
“One son is in Wisconsin with his wife; my daughter, Ellen, she lives in Charlotte, and they’re expecting our third grandchild,” he remarked. “I have a son who’s in Chapel Hill as a student, in medical school, no less. That’s a lot of territory to cover when visiting, but I really want to see more of them and I just can’t do that with a full-time job. So, just like my mother said, it was a hard decision, but I realized I’m not getting any younger, and my children, they’re going through important stages of life, and I just want to be a part of it.”
While seeing family more often is his focus now, Viser won’t just be kicking back when not traveling to see his children. Ever active within the community, he’s part of many civic and nonprofit groups, from Sampson Partners, ArtWorks and Sampson Community College, all work he plans to continue.
“Beyond my dear family, I look forward to continuing my civic engagements, so I’m going to be around here most of the time,” he said. “I also look forward to having more time to spend with Sampson Partners and ArtWorks and, of course, the community college. I think the community college, it’s right up there as one of the top two or three institutions in this county that makes things sing in Sampson.
“I just always try to think of what is essential to the county,” Viser added. “That’s why I try to do what I can to be involved out there, and I definitely plan to continue that even though I’m retired because I like being a part of the community. Oh, and in the background is my personal sanctuary, my woodworking shop.”
He also noted that, while done with primary care, he will continue to provide occupational health services, options that included urine drug testing, pre-employment exams and commercial drivers’ license (CDL) medical exams and other varies services for the hospital and other parts of Sampson.
Viser is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and began his 37 years of practice in Sampson County in 1987. While he practiced for nearly four decades in his professional life, Viser said his love for science and medicine goes all the way back to his childhood, his dream of becoming a doctor sparked by his father, Edward Taylor Viser.
“My dad was a general practitioner, and that was back in the 50s when he went to medical school after serving in World War II,” he said. “Back then, they would do a one-year internship after medical school, and after that, they were cut loose. I saw that, and it’s not an easy life, but the compensation was modest. He worked hard and was a solo practitioner so I kind of patterned myself after him.”
“I always saw it as a service and I knew I’d make enough to live and support myself and my family, and I worked hard,” he added. “Primary Care, it’s a challenge, but I was willing to do that because I’ve always felt I really owned bringing this as a service to the people. I’ve also never missed a meal, and I have never regretted it.”
Something Viser said he’s also never regretted was spending his career as a doctor here in Sampson County.
“Why have I stayed in Sampson County my whole career, now that’s a good question,” he said chuckling. “I came here because it seemed like a town that had it together. This is a good town, it really is. We have our challenges, like anybody, but there are a lot of people who care about this town, and you really don’t see much of that in a lot of small towns.
“There are four of us around my age group that came here to practice because Clinton is a good town and the hospital is a big part of that; we just wanted to be a part of it as well,” he added.”
Now into retirement, that feeling of wanting to be a part of Sampson County hasn’t changed, and Viser said there’s nowhere he’d rather stay.
“I remember my first year out of public health service, I went to Winston Salem and I just fell off,” Viser said laughingly. “Winston Salem is so different from eastern North Carolina, and after six months, I said I’ve got to get back to eastern North Carolina.”
He continued, “So again, Sampson County, it’s been a good place and I don’t plan on leaving. I’m taking my lessons from Dr. (John) Surratt. When he retired from his dermatology practice, he got a condominium where his daughter and his grandchildren were growing up. He didn’t leave Clinton, but it was easier to go there and visit them. I may do that but I don’t plan to ever leave, then again, things can happen.
“Some people, they’ll retire and go to like Florida, but for me, I’ve got too much invested in relationships here,” Viser added. “I don’t want to go to someplace just because they have shuffleboard.”
Now that retirement is in Viser’s foreseeable future, besides travel for family, what else does the longtime doctor have planned? For now, it’s continuing to adapt to the transition of being retired.
“I’ll always love the relationships I’ve built. I’m just a month in and I’m feeling the absence,” he said. “We’re still in a transitional phase and getting adjusted to what I’m doing at the hospital so I don’t know what form that will take.
“Aside from that, I’m looking forward to continuing things I’ve already been able to do since I don’t have a schedule of office visits,” Viser added. “The things I do now I can move them around like chess. If I want, I can make a table to take to ArtWorks then I can go across town and attend something, so it’s easier to fit things in.”
And growing ArtWorks, he noted, will be his main focus in the coming months.
“ArtWorks, that’s my goal right now,” he said. “Over the next six months I’ll be working towards attracting a steady clientele of art buyers from out of the region, to enlarge our area of drawing people in because I believe that’s necessary for Sampson County.”
Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.