MACON, Ga. — Ahead of National Doctor's Day on Saturday, March 30, hospitals nationwide and in Central Georgia have been celebrating their physicians.
Gene Logue was a patient at Piedmont Macon and is immensely grateful for her doctor, Earl Mullis.
Without his care, she added, life would be much different.
As a great-grandmother of four, being healthy is ever so crucial to Logue.
"I think everybody fears the word cancer, and I have had friends who didn't make it," Logue said.
Nearly four years ago, Dr. Mullis delivered a rather scary message to her during a routine mammogram.
"I remember saying, 'I don't want any bad news', and he said, 'Well, I got bad news, but it's not the end of the world,'" Logue remembered.
In the span of four years, she'd battled Triple-negative breast cancer on one side, Ductal carcinoma, another form of breast cancer, on the other and needed her gallbladder removed.
Both were together again in the hospital ahead of Doctor's Day.
Logue considered Dr. Mullis her hero.
"I think there's only one way to take care of patients, and that's the right way," Dr. Mullis said.
His normal rule of care became a personal one.
He guided Logue through the procedure and recovery.
At the same time, he instructed her at church, too, because he's her Sunday school teacher.
"I try not to take care of somebody I know any differently than somebody I don't know," Dr. Mullis explained.
He is a part of the more than 520 physicians at Piedmont Macon, caring for patients daily.
However, he doesn't want people to forget that everything happening in a hospital is bigger than him.
"Whether it's a nurse or a physician's assistant, people in the cafeteria and environmental services, they're all part of the body of medicine," Mullis said.
It's a large reason, Logue told 13WMAZ, why she's happy and healthy today and able to do things that fill her heart the most.
"It didn't slow me down, but I love people, I love my friends, and I especially love my grandkids," Logue said.
There are a little more than one million doctors in the United States, so if you see one, thank them.