In May, Marion County lost arguably the greatest physician it has ever seen in Dr. Ronald Luethje, a man who spent his life serving and teaching others without hubris.
Luethje soared in many professional roles throughout his life, and he was able to do so because his commitment and compassion was unparalleled.
His son, Ryan, said Dr. Luethje was extremely devoted to his family and community, and his father was a man he was happy to emulate.
“Looking up to him and the pride and passion that he had for his profession, I definitely wanted to do the same and make it my own,” said Ryan, who holds an educational doctorate himself and works at Southern Miss. “I definitely looked up to him in that regard.”
Although he was born and raised in Washington D.C., Columbia and Marion County became his home when he and his wife, Brenda, moved to her hometown.
“He loved Columbia and Marion County and everybody in it,” Ryan said.
For more than 30 years, Dr. Luethje served Marion County as a surgeon and emergency room doctor, and he was unquestionably the best. But while his knowledge and skill played a role in his abilities, it was devotion to his practice, colleagues and patients that separated him.
“He put his whole heart into it because he loved what he was doing. He never took shortcuts. It was the best or nothing,” Brenda said.
Like Luethje, Christopher Shields is a man of many talents, serving as an IT specialist, police officer and security for Marion General Hospital. When he met Luethje in the hospital, he felt like he had an equal intellectually that he could have deep conversations with.
“He was a man of many books. He could talk to you about anything. He would start talking about a subject and look at me and tell that I knew something about it,” Shields explained. “He was a very good man to work with. He was methodical, knew his practice, and he was very knowledgeable.”
As he went to bed every night, Luethje would read a book because he was always thirsting for knowledge, and it showed. Brenda said, in her opinion, he was a genius who could converse about any subject that he encountered.
“He just always knew,” she said, “because he was an avid reader. He just enjoyed being knowledgeable and not only being knowledgeable but applying that knowledge to everyday life.”
Both Shields and Dr. Jeffery Johnson said he was an “old-school doctor” that took the time to truly study the patient rather than staring at a computer screen and occasionally examining the patient. Johnson said Luethje always went the extra mile to take care of patients and didn’t worry about treating patients quickly to stay on a schedule or doing things differently because of a patient’s insurance.
“He always tried to do things the right way,” Johnson said. “If some insurance company said, ‘No, we’re going to do it this way,’ if he didn’t think it was the right thing to do for the patient, then he was going to find a way to do it his way, whether it took longer or not. He did meticulous work, and he was thorough.”
Johnson described the way Luethje inserted chest tubes as perfection. A nurse practitioner from Keystone, who was also on staff at the emergency room, told Johnson they had never seen anyone put in a chest tube quite like Luethje.
“A lot of people just make an incision and slam it in. He treated a chest tube just like it was a sterile surgical procedure as if he was doing it in his operating room. People didn’t hurt when they had it done, and they weren’t uncomfortable. It was always sterile,” Johnson said. “That was just the way he did things. There’s a lot of that missing nowadays.”
In comparison to other hospitals in the area, Marion General always had far fewer post-operative infections, and that was because of Luethje’s attention to detail and always methodical approach.
Registered Nurse Brandon Rowell first met Luethje working in the emergency room in 2005, and he credits Luethje for teaching him so much about caring for patients.
“Schools teaches you a lot on theory, then you pick up about 50% of your knowledge base on the job, and he was a really good teacher, teaching by patience and showing you how. Anybody who would show any interest, he would take his time with you,” Rowell said. “He was very meticulous, very methodical and efficient. He would give you constructive criticism in the form of teaching without actually criticizing. He was very gifted in that respect.”
Another mark of a good physician is being able to translate difficult medical jargon into terms the patient can relate to and understand. Rowell said Luethje had a gift in being able to connect with people from all walks of life and get them to understand what was going on with such ease.
“He was the best I’ve ever seen. I learned a lot about communicating with patients from him,” Rowell said.
As amazing as he was at communicating with patients, those who worked with him had to learn police 10-code to be able to talk to Luethje. Rowell said that Luethje would commonly use codes like 10-8, which meant he was coming to you, or 10-7 to say that he was leaving.
“He was real funny about that. New nurses were always fun to watch trying to pick up on what he was saying. I’d tell them they need to learn it because he may spit it out and not realize he’s telling you that way,” Rowell said.
Luethje always made sure he saw every patient through to the end. Most doctors have the nurses give patients instructions on what they need to do once they’re home from a hospital stay, but not Luethje. As Rowell said, “If he didn’t do it, he considered it not done.”
As a general and trauma surgeon, Luethje worked on all types of cases from trauma to tumors, cancer lesions and anything involving opening up the abdomen. He was particularly gifted, according to Rowell, working on patients’ gastrointestinal systems.
“I’ve seen him reverse colostomies and help people who were told they would never utilize the restroom again,” Rowell said.
Johnson recalled a case where he was scheduled to do a colonoscopy on someone who had taken GoLYTELY, which causes patients to use the restroom prior to the procedure. This particular patient still was unable to, which is unheard of. It turned out the patient had colon cancer, and when he took the medicine, he developed a bowel obstruction. Luethje, Johnson and Dr. Bryan McCraw worked on him for hours to clear the obstruction, and Luethje was able to perform a stellar surgery that kept the patient from having to get a colostomy bag.
“He was an amazing surgeon,” Shields said. “He’s probably the only doctor I could name off hand that I could trust my life with. He was so meticulous.”
“I would’ve let him perform any surgery I would’ve had,” Rowell said.
In the old emergency room at Marion General, there were five patient rooms. Rooms one and five had real inside walls, while two, three and four only had privacy curtains. One night Luethje and Shields were talking while Luethje was looking over test results. Shields saw the patient in room one, who had a heart condition, sitting up in his bed, then all of his sudden his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he fell back onto the hospital bed.
“I looked at Doc and said, ‘I’m not a doctor, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night — that can’t be good.’ Dr. Luethje looked at him then looked at me and goes, ‘Crash cart.’ He hit the ‘code blue’ button, I grabbed the crash cart, and we managed to save the guy’s life,” Shields recalled.
Luethje did it all in his career as a general surgeon, emergency room doctor, police officer, training officer, Army veteran and school board member, but perhaps his best secret skill was being a snake wrangler. One night a snake slithered its way into the emergency room through the automatic doors. Without missing a beat, Luethje killed it with a police baton while carrying on a conversation.
“He was just as cool about it as if it happened every day,” Rowell said. “That was hilarious. He came easing around that corner with the snake hanging from the end of that baton like it happened all the time.”
Believe it or not, that wasn’t his only experience dealing with a snake in the emergency room. Another time a man ran into the emergency room with a snake in a bucket, believing he needed to show the doctors what kind of snake bit him.
“(Luethje) said, ‘There’s very few things in life I don’t need you to bring in here in a bucket, but a snake is one of them. I believe what you’re telling me,’” Rowell recalled with a laugh.
Dr. Johnson worked alongside Luethje in the emergency room and said not only was he an excellent physician and surgeon, he considered Luethje a good friend who he could always rely on no matter what situation arose.
“He was just a really good man and a good guy,” Rowell added. “Just the patience he took with you was unheard of. He’s the only physician I’ve had that asked me if I wanted to learn something and showed me. That was his way of showing you how to do it right. Every nurse in the hospital was happy to do it the Dr. Luethje way.”
“I miss him. I really miss Doc,” Shields said. “He was very personable and a great man.”
So many people throughout Marion County are better today because of Dr. Luethje. Whether it was because he resected their tumor, kept them healthy, kept them safe from crime, approved funding for their school or saved a nurse from a serpent, he was always there when needed. As a husband, father, physician, police officer or mentor, he will never be forgotten.
“He was really the all-around ace of spades. From the womb to the tomb, he had the knowledge base on it,” Rowell said. “He really was the best.”
