Dr. Mark Webster will officially retire from his medical service to Old Forge and its surrounding Communities at the end of 2012, putting a close to a career that has spanned 35 years.

Though his medical affiliation to the area dates back to 1976 when he worked as a third-year resident at the Town of Webb Health Center, Dr. Webster’s familiarity with Old Forge came at a very young age.

His local debut came at the age of five when his father Dwight, a Professor of Biology and Fisheries with Cornell University, consulted with Adirondack League Club (ALC) residents. In the fall of 1954, he attended Town of Webb Schools for his kindergarten year. The late Millie Wark was his teacher. His father worked at ALC that year, during a sabbatical from Cornell.

After that, the family came up summers while Dwight did test netting and other work into the fall.

They would return to their Ithaca home for the school year. Years went by and Mark decided to pursue a career in medicine.

He did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where he met Susan, whom he married in 1972.

From there, he went to Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, for his medical training.

He did his internship and residency at St. Joseph’s Hospital, also in Syracuse.

In 1976 he did a month-long rural elective service at the Town of Webb Health Center with Dr. Charles Moehs, an experience Mark said he quite enjoyed. When he finished his residency in 1977, he and Susan decided to come to Old Forge “for maybe a year or two,” he said.

And thirty-five years later, he is retiring from his one and only job of offering a family practice at the Town of Webb Health Center.

Mark described the family practice as non-traditional. Due to the fact that the nearest hospital and emergency room is an hour away, he’s had to do a little bit of everything—a “Jack of all trades.”

But through the years he had developed a good rapport with specialists with whom he’d had phone consultations with from our remote location.

Dr. Webster said that in the early days of the Health Center, he took care of a wider variety  of medical conditions than he does now, largely because of increased specialization.

He cites EMT and paramedics’ triaging patients and sending those in need of immediate assistance directly to hospitals as an improvement in local medical care.

Currently patients who need to be hospitalized get there more quickly as they are not seen first at the health center.

Mark said he has found it gratifying to work with appreciative patients, and that it will be a difficult thing to give up his practice. But the time has come to move on and do other things.

He and Susan, who he credits with lending him great support throughout his career, plan to do some traveling.

They particularly look forward to spending more time with their three daughters and grandchildren who live in Minnesota, New York and Vermont.

By summer they will have five grandchildren, he said. And he intends to continue enjoying his hobbies of hunting, fishing and hiking.

“I might even consider taking up golf! Who knows?” he said.

Another activity he would like to get involved in is one that brought him to the area in the first place: the fishery program at ALC.

“One of the things I hope to do in retirement is to help Dan Josephson with some of his research… because I’m kind of a frustrated fishery biologist. This may be my chance to get involved back in fisheries,” he said.

The public is welcome to wish Dr. Webster well at a retirement party that will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. in Gould Hall at View on Thursday, December 27.