A beloved Columbia physician who lost his battle with ALS last week is being remembered as a man who made a difference.
Dr. Mark Stevens, 66, died June 13, and colleagues at the Columbia Family Clinic warmly recalled his medical skills, sense of humor and dedication.
“Dr. Stevens was an amazing doctor, mentor and friend,” Amy McKenzie, a nurse practitioner at the clinic, said. “He had an open door at all times to discuss practically anything. He taught me so much about family practice and made me a better provider.”
Stevens retired in February 2017 as the symptoms grew. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes muscle weakness, paralysis and, ultimately, respiratory failure.
McKenzie said the clinic hadn’t been the same since Stevens left.
“He made work fun, and we never knew what he would say next,” she said. “Our community lost an incredible physician, many lost an amazing friend, but most of all, a family lost their hero.”
Dr. Bert Beisel, assistant director of student health services at the University of Southern Mississippi, worked with Stevens for 15 years in Columbia and agreed with McKenzie.
“When I first started, he was a mentor. He was an awesome physician. He always did everything right,” Beisel said. “He worked a lot, putting in long days at the clinic and then working two to three days at the Marion General Hospital emergency room. He was very dedicated to his patients.”
But Beisel remembers another side of Stevens.
“He was hilarious,” he said. “He had a dry sense of humor. He made a lot of fun of himself – not laughing at other people, but laughing at himself. He was a huge Mississippi State fan and he always played practical jokes on Amy because she is an Ole Miss fan. He would put Ole Miss memorabilia in her office on her days away from the clinic and things like that. The two of them would go back and forth with it.”
A Jackson native, Stevens graduated from Mississippi State and then the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. He had been a physician for nearly four decades. His wife, Martha, also a doctor, practiced alongside him in the Army Medical Corps.
“It’s a huge loss for the medical community and for our community,” Beisel said. “He was very involved in his church and had served at the altar for 56 years. He was an active member of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church here in Columbia.”
Beisel said Stevens was a huge history buff.
“He would paint small tin soldiers and go to war games,” he said. “The figurines are displayed on a board and you use strategies to play the games. He would take a week off each year to go to the war games. He was a huge student of military history. He knew every detail from all of the battles.”
Beisel said that Stevens was a great role model to other physicians.
“He was a well-rounded physician,” Beisel said. “I never saw him make mistakes. I sometimes didn’t understand how he could physically do what he did. He would work a 12- to 24-hour shift at the emergency room and come in the next day to the clinic at 8 a.m. and work a full day. His patients always came first, even sometimes as the sacrifice of his family. He was really a Superman.”
