Addison County Bids Farewell To A Local Favorite Dr. Allan Curtiss
By Cookie Steponaitis
photo by provided Wrapping up a thirty plus year practice in Addison County, Dr. Alan Curtiss will be headed south for the winter months, but will be headed back to his Shoreham home in time for planting season!
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photo by provided Married for 34 years, Alan and Lois Curtiss have not only been involved in medicine, but in the lives of the people of Addison County in countless ways. The Valley Voice salutes them and wishes them the very best in their new adventures which are scheduled to include, fishing, camping, friends, family and perhaps a part time medical practice in the south.
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Addison County residents have visited Dr. Allan Curtiss for health and wellness needs of all shapes and sizes for the past thirty six years. His philosophy is one of “listening to you and seeing what can be done to help you get back to health”. He has been a medical professional who set his own agenda and time frame when meeting patients, taking the time to know the story of the whole patient and acknowledge and factor in what was going on in their daily life as a part of the medical picture. He has worked with three generations of Addison County residents and is known for being a man who listened, cared and went above and beyond to help people feel better. Allan Curtiss was born into a family with a history of medical careers including a physician grandfather who passed away in 1929 because of a ruptured diverticulum and a mother who was a nurse. He went off to college with visions of a Wildlife Conservation and an Agricultural Science degree in mind. While working as a tree surgeon after college he was offered a diverse number of possibilities that included Oceanography, Human Anatomy and many more to choose from. On the advice of a best friend Curtiss chose Clemson University to attain an MS in Physiology. He then attended medical school at the Medical University of South Carolina. “It was the right fit and on the first day of school I was making rounds with a clinical physician having tested out of some of the courses in the first year,” shared Curtiss. Following that came three years of residency in Internal Medicine at Norwalk hospital (affiliated with Yale University). He then did a two year fellowship in Cardiology at the University of Vermont. Dr. Curtiss then moved back to South Carolina and a practice in Cardiology at a 150 bed hospital. Dr. Curtiss and his partner logged long days, nights on call and weekends. The Curtiss family had spent vacations in Vermont in the 1950’s and 1960’s and his parents retired to Shoreham in the early 1970’s. Dr. Curtiss had always planned to move back here to live at some point which came in 1988 when the Alan & Lois packed up the household belongings, the two animals and Alan B. and drove through one of the more memorable blizzards on Thanksgiving Day to Shoreham. “We walked in, turned up the heat and were home,” explained Dr. Curtiss. It was not long before it was suggested to Dr. Curtiss that he should open up a local practice and along with Lois opened the Shorewell Clinic at the Newton Academy Building in Shoreham. Lois was his nurse and the couple ran the clinic for the first eight years together. Sons Allan and Daniel were raised in the countryside of Addison County and it was a never-ending cycle of 4-H, family, friends and work as an Internal Medicine Doctor and Cardiologist. “I always knew that when I went to Dr. Curtiss I would be listened to,” shared a former patient. “My appointment was not on a time clock and there was time to discuss not only the medical condition that brought me in but other parts of my life that were also impacting my health. Sometimes we were there sixty minutes and sometimes ninety minutes. It was understood that his schedule ebbed and flowed and revolved around the needs of his patients.” It was a tragic fire in April 2010 that burned down the Clinic and took thirty years of memories, records and artifacts with it. Remarkably, with the help of Lois, his office staff and their husbands, the community and Rutland Hospital it was only ten days later that Dr. Curtiss was able to open the door of the Shorewell Clinic at its new Main Street location. Dr. Curtiss joined the practices of the Community Health Centers of the Rutland Region in December 2012. The Clinic moved to its present location on Route 22A in Shoreham on June 1, 2015. Dr. Curtiss shared that the innumerable changes in medicine during his career have revolutionized diagnosis and treatment and it was angioplasty, stent placement and statins he credited for having the most important impact on people being treated for cardiac problems. Dr. Curtiss was deeply involved in the care of his patients and Porter Hospital where he served as the Secretary- Treasurer, Vice President and finally President of the Porter Hospital Medical Staff. Dr. Curtiss was the Shoreham Town Health Officer for twenty-five years and he also served on the Shoreham and ACSU School Boards for fifteen years. Dr. Curtiss‘s official retirement date is June 30th. He and his wife of thirty-four years Lois will be splitting their time between their Shoreham home and a home in Mississippi. While retired in Vermont Dr. Curtiss intends to practice part time in the South and to, as Curtiss remarked, “Do what tigers do bestest and treat patients in Cardiology.” With fish to catch, kayaks to use, a camper to take to the roads and friends, family and travels that beckon, Addison County bids a fond farewell to a doctor and more importantly a physician who always remembered to, “put the person first, ask questions and to formulate a plan to change the situation for the better.” Thank you Allan Curtiss for every office visit, hospital emergency room call, school board meeting, town planning, the exciting additions to the services of Porter Hospital and for always being a physician who led with knowledge, heart and care for a person. Seeing you was never about a formula or a fifteen minute window of hurried dialogue. You listened, cared and had a deep knowledge of medicine from which to plan out a workable treatment and set of goals. The Community Health Centers of the Rutland Region and the Shoreham Community are getting together to provide a sendoff party for the Curtiss’s on June 25th from 12pm-3 pm at the Shoreham Fire House. The Curtiss’s are looking forward to the camper taking them to many national parks, spending the winters in Mississippi and then returning the pair to the Shoreham homestead in summer.
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