FAYETTEVILLE—When Charles Floyd, MD, retired earlier this year after serving the Northwest Arkansas Free Health Center for 16 years, he earned a landmark designation as the physician with the most consecutive years of volunteer service.

 

“Dr. Floyd will be sorely missed at the center,” said Monika Fischer-Massie, executive director.

 

Floyd’s Arkansas roots run deep. He was born in a log cabin near Capps, a small community close to Harrison, on Sept. 20, 1930—just as the Great Depression was settling over the United States.

 

“My family was very poor, subsistence farming, raise your own food and sell enough produce—milk, eggs, et cetera—to purchase some supplies,” he said. “My family didn’t have a home of their own, so we lived with relatives or on the farms of relatives.”

 

When Floyd was six years old, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The family was told to move to Arizona for “the treatment … fresh air and prayer.”

 

“So we lived in Arizona through the seventh grade,” he recalled. “My father helped clean irrigation ditches and finally got a promotion to 'ditch rider.' He would turn water on and off to farms for irrigation. Life was a bit better.”

 

Encouraged by his mother to pursue higher education and a professional career, Floyd began pre-med studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

 

“Barbara and I were married just before I started UAMS,” he said. “I would never have made it without her.”

 

After graduation, Floyd finished a rotating internship before being drafted into the U.S. Army.

 

“I’d planned to pursue cardiology, but the Army put me to doing pediatrics. I’m not sure why, except I had very good grades in pediatrics during med school, or,” he joked, “maybe they thought I would do less harm there? It fit, so I completed a pediatric residency at the University of Colorado.”

 

After completing his military obligation, Floyd spent 25 years in pediatric practice in Fort Smith and then taught at Arkansas Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) in Fort Smith.

 

“My introduction to Northwest Arkansas Free Health Center came while I was the volunteer medical director at a summer camp for children with cancer at Lake Fort Smith State Park,” he recalled. “One of the volunteers at the camp was also a volunteer at the health center.”

 

Floyd found the patients at Northwest Arkansas Free Health Center “very appreciative.”

 

“I tried to treat everyone with the kindness and courtesy they deserved,” he said. “The amount of pathology that walked through the doors at the health center was always amazing to me. One lady with severe peripheral vascular disease—that I referred to UAMS for surgery—had been misdiagnosed as having arthritis because of severe leg pain. Another lady with severe hypothyroidism had been lost in the shuffle. There’s so much need among those less fortunate; the need for treatment before their conditions become even worse.”

 

Even though Floyd stayed very busy throughout his medical career, he always carved out time to volunteer and fulfill his personal commitment to assist others. 

 

“It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that I was helping someone,” he said. “I remembered my early years of poverty, so I could identify with them.”

 

Floyd applauded the small, paid staff that coordinates the operation of the center with the assistance of volunteer physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, technicians, and lay volunteers. As the center moves toward expanded hours, he noted that more volunteers will be needed.