By Dinah Miller, MD
[Winter 2006; Vol. 33, No. 1; Pg 1, 11]
Everything
to do with MPS President Bill Prescott comes with a story. Whether it’s his
car license plate (“Foo” which has some connection to a 1940’s cartoon
character) or his e-mail address (PHStwostar@aol.com,
noting his rank as a two-star Rear Admiral when he retired from the Public
Health Service), all you have to do is ask and there’s a tale to be told.
The stories span not just the country, but distant parts of the globe.
They include accounts of hanging from a shark cage in his role as medical
officer and support swimmer/diver during a friend’s open ocean 58 mile
record-breaking swim from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico, and the chillier task of
serving as the ship surgeon (and dentist) on a US Coast Guard mission to break a
pathway through the icy waters of the Arctic past Northern Greenland.
Dr.
Prescott was born, raised, and educated in Portland, Oregon (his second email
address is Oregon@aol.com)
and he graduated from the University of Oregon Medical School with both an MD
and a Master’s degree in 1963.
“Oregon
was the American outback then; it was a long way from anywhere.
I used to dream about going to the tropics.”
With
that dream, Dr. Prescott spent a year as a rotating intern at Gorgas Hospital in
the Panama Canal Zone, and then was drafted into the Public Health Service.
After completing his training at Wyman Park in otolaryngology-- a specialty
chosen for him by PHS-- he went on to finish a year of general surgery, then
went to Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital to train in psychiatry.
In
1972, PHS sent Dr. Prescott to San Juan, Puerto Rico where he became Director
and Commanding Officer of the US PHS Outpatient Clinic. “It was an exciting
time, we set up a big out-patient clinic at Fort Buchanan and I set up an
air-sea Medevac system.
I functioned as both an ENT and a psychiatrist, they called me ‘The
Complete Head!’”
From
1976 to 1981, Dr. Prescott served as Chief for the Department of Psychiatry at
the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco while simultaneously
serving as the Director of the US PHS Community Mental Health Center.
In 1981, he was moved to Washington to become Director of the Cuban and
Haitian Mental Health Programs, part of the National Institutes of Mental
Health.
“There
were 125,000 Cuban ‘entrants’ brought into the U.S. as a consequence of the
Mariel boatlift of 1980, during the Carter administration. They overwhelmed the
Peruvian Embassy in Havana, and Castro let them out but he sent along all the
occupants of their state hospitals.
Many of the entrants were psychiatrically ill and intellectually
handicapped.
Some of them were very dangerous and had long criminal records.
We moved them into military facilities and finally a vacated state
penitentiary in Atlanta.
I could go on about this forever.” (I didn’t let him.)
In
1984, Dr. Prescott was named Superintendent of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in
Washington, D.C. “I loved it.
We were trying to renew this place; it had more psychiatric horsepower
than anywhere I’ve seen, and the best view in D.C: a treasure.
We had everything from psychodrama to psychoanalysis.”
He
remained at St. Elizabeth’s until it transitioned from being part of the PHS
to its current status under the auspices of the District of Columbia in 1987.
“I gave the key to Marion Barry, we shook hands and had our picture taken, and
I retired from the Public Health Service.”
Since
1987, Dr. Prescott has been working, as a psychiatrist (his surgery and
dentistry days are done), at Brook Lane Psychiatric Center in Hagerstown, first
as their medical director, and now as part of an affiliated group of physicians
where he does both in-patient and out-patient work, with expertise in ECT.
In 1992, he took a sabbatical to work in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
“There was a booth set up at APA, they were recruiting psychiatrists to set up
community mental health services in New Zealand.
I always wanted to go there; it sounded good to me!”
Dr.
Prescott is Board Certified in Administrative, Geriatric, Forensic, and
Addictions Psychiatry.
He’s licensed in five states.
The list of honors, awards, affiliations,
military commendations, and leadership positions are diverse and long.
For MPS, he’s served on Council, as Co-Chair of the Legislative Affairs
Committee, and on the Geriatrics Committee, and if that’s not enough, he’s
had an active role in Med Chi and on the Political Action Committee.
At
the MPS, it’s not been the quiet summer they’d hoped for. The Executive
Committee has had a number of pressing legislative issues and Judy Jacobson, the
Executive Director, has left.
“Our
biggest issue is one of unifying our resources with our fellow clinical
organizations: Suburban Maryland Psychiatric Society, Med Chi, NAMI, the Mental
Health Association, and others who share our interest and desire to improve the
quality of psychiatric care in the state of Maryland.
I hope, also, to expand our representation among psychiatrists across the
state.”
On a personal note, Dr. Prescott and his wife, Barbara, have one dog, three cats, and nine children. Somehow, there wasn’t time for those stories.