CovingtonCares Magazine - Fall/Winter 2023

The hotel had been vacant and crumbling for years when the Johnstons demolished it. They built their new clinic there in 1986 and named it after the hotel. A Bit of Everything Thirty years previously, the senior Dr. Johnston had founded the Mount Olive Clinic just down the street. Like any small-town doctor, he handled everything from stitching up cuts to delivering babies. When his son joined him in 1984, the practice needed larger quarters. Originally, the new building had three exam rooms, enough for only one doctor at a time. Dr. Word Johnston would do his rounds at Covington County Hospital in the mornings while his father worked at the clinic. In the afternoons, they would swap. Nurse Practitioner In 1990 Green Tree Clinic became certified as a Medicare-participating rural health clinic. Certification rules required the hiring of an additional healthcare provider. The Johnstons expanded the staff with a nurse practitioner (currently Robin Leggett- Hudson, FNP, and Katie Rush, FNP). They also added two exam rooms and an office to the building. “When Daddy started,” said the younger Johnston, “his medical records were on 3-by-5 cards. Sometime after that, it went up to 4-by-6 cards. And then it was half sheets of paper. Then it was whole sheets of paper. Then, about the time I came in, we started actually dictating notes, and we would have a transcriptionist type them up.” Eventually, the clinic switched to electronic health records. “I guess we’ve been through four or five different computer systems,” Dr. Word Johnston said. One Too Many “That is one reason I retired” in 2013, said his father. “I learned the first two systems. Then you were going to put a third one in.” In the early years, said the senior Dr. Johnston, he made four to eight house calls a day. When he finally got home in the evening, “There’d be cars lined up outside.” Most folks couldn’t take time off work during the day for doctor visits. Each doctor estimated that he delivered about 2,000 babies. Both found it enormously satisfying. When that new life began, said Dr. Word Johnston, “Everybody was happy.” House calls have gone the way of rotary phones. The clinic stopped delivering babies some 20 years ago because malpractice insurance coverage became unavailable. Satisfying Service Still, the Johnstons look back on enormously satisfying decades of community service. “I’ll sit waiting for my wife sometimes in Walmart,” said Dr. Joe Johnston, “and I’ll have people come up and say, ‘Doc, remember when you sewed me up?’ ‘Remember when you delivered my baby?’ ‘Doc, do you remember when you delivered me?’” Pictured L-R: Eden Yelverton, MD , an OB-GYN in Lakewood Ranch, Florida (daughter of Dr. Word Johnston), Word Johnston, MD, Joe Johnston, MD CovingtonCares 23 Call CCH Clinic Green Tree at 601.797.3405 , or visit (walk-ins are welcome) at 603 South Main Street in Mount Olive, Mississippi. Hours are Monday- Friday, 8 AM-noon, 1-5 PM. LEARNMORE