{"id":103554,"date":"2017-09-14T15:51:03","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T21:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-doctor-to-retire-after-39-years\/"},"modified":"2017-09-14T15:51:03","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T21:51:03","slug":"cortez-doctor-to-retire-after-39-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-doctor-to-retire-after-39-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez doctor to retire after 39 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Robert Heyl accepts the Cortez Area Chamber of Commerce\u2019s Unsung Hero Award from Carol Rhan in 2014.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When he first drove into town through McElmo Canyon in 1978, Robert Heyl said he felt \u201ccalled\u201d to practice medicine in Cortez. Thirty-nine years later, he\u2019s preparing to retire.<\/p>\n

During his career in Montezuma County, Heyl has worked in the emergency room and intensive care units at Southwest Memorial Hospital, delivered more than 800 babies, made home visits to people throughout the county and operated his own family practice clinic on North Mildred Road. He was a founding member of the Four Corners Child Advocacy Center in 1993 and operated a free primary care clinic out of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church for several years.<\/p>\n

He plans to retire on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n

Heyl graduated from Syracuse University, New York Medical College and the U.S. Air Force Family Practice Residency Program, and received his medical license in 1976. He said he decided to move to Cortez from Colorado Springs because he wanted a chance to use all of his comprehensive family practice training, which included everything from delivering babies to geriatric care.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a family physician coming to a small community, you\u2019re able to do all those things,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you go to the bigger places \u2013 suburbs and so on \u2013 so many times, you can\u2019t do those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he saw the mountain landscape, he said, he felt that God had called him to serve \u201csuch a beautiful community.\u201d Heyl\u2019s medical patients haven\u2019t been the only people affected by his service.<\/p>\n

Rose Jergens, executive director of the Child Advocacy Center, said the doctor has been instrumental in combating child abuse in Montezuma County throughout his career. He was a part of the child protection team that formed in Montezuma County in 1978, and Jergens said he did most of the research and early training that eventually led to the center\u2019s establishment in 1993.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been around for 25 years, and there have been times when funding has been short, but he\u2019s always been the driving force that keeps us going,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s been the one constant for 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Child Advocacy Center, which helps investigate potential cases of child abuse with the help of medical, legal, educational and other experts, was nationally accredited in 1995. Heyl has served on its board of directors off and on throughout its history, Jergens said, and he has assisted in numerous child abuse investigations as a forensic medical examiner.<\/p>\n

Kent Rogers, CEO of Southwest Health System, said Heyl will leave behind a \u201cgreat legacy\u201d with the medical group and the people it serves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot begin to count all of the things that Dr. Heyl has done to make Cortez and Montezuma County a better place to live,\u201d he said in an email.<\/p>\n

Heyl has received several awards for his work in the community, including the 2007 Harold E. Williamson Award for Volunteer Medical Services from the COPIC Medical Foundation, and the Unsung Hero Award from the Cortez Area Chamber of Commerce in 2014.<\/p>\n

But many people in Cortez, including Mayor Karen Sheek, primarily knew Heyl as their family doctor. Sheek said his practice will be missed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say enough good things about him as a professional, and he\u2019s also just a good man,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m happy he\u2019s able to retire, because he deserves to do that, but I\u2019m sad that he won\u2019t be our family doctor anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although work as a small-town doctor has always been demanding, Heyl said, it\u2019s become too difficult to do the job full-time at age 70. But he said he still plans to do some volunteer work in town after his retirement.<\/p>\n

Sheek announced at Tuesday\u2019s city council meeting that she and the city\u2019s special event staff planned to give Heyl an official send-off at the Third Thursday market on Sept. 21, complete with cake and the event\u2019s usual live music. She said she thought it would be a good way for people in the community to thank the man for his long service, and added that people at the celebration are welcome to \u201csay a few words\u201d about Heyl.<\/p>\n

Heyl said that although he\u2019s pleased with what he accomplished in Cortez, he especially values the friendships that he made.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not so much the things that you do \u2013 it\u2019s the people you meet,\u201d he said. \u201cIn family medicine, having those relationships has been so rewarding to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thanked the rest of the staff at his clinic, including Bernice Ferrell, Deeanna Wilson, Diana Smith and Eileen Webb, for their support. Melissa Churchill and Whitney Pack, two local medical professionals who trained under Heyl, will carry on his work as forensic examiners with the Child Advocacy Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

retirement party for Robert Heyl<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[431,21,13,1141],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-103554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-business-general","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-healthcare-provider"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103554"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=103554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}