DR. C. JOHN RITTER TO RETIRE, GO ON MEDICAL MISSIONS

Dr. C. John Ritter plans to quit his job so he can provide medical care where it is needed most -- in third-world countries.

The 59-year-old internist plans to close his private practice at the end of the month.

In a letter to his patients, Ritter said he will devote his time and energy "to the services of God and mankind in both foreign and domestic fields."

He wants to undertake more medical missions with the Doctors to the World charity. He may go to Africa on medical missions with the Methodist Church.

He also hopes to work with the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center.

On Jan. 5, Ritter will embark on a five-week trip to India with four other members of a Rotary Club exchange. While it isn't a medical mission, Ritter said he will visit medical facilities there.

Ritter has been interested in helping people in third-world nations for years; at one time he wanted to join the Peace Corps.

"I just really enjoy helping people," he said Friday.

He and his wife, Marcia, provided medical care on the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda in November 1995. Marcia, a nurse, is vice president of patient care at St. Francis Medical Center.

The couple spent about a month caring for residents in the aftermath of a hurricane that battered the island. They volunteered their services through the Doctors to the World.

It was Ritter's second trip to Barbuda: He previously went on a monthlong medical mission in 1993.

The island of 1,200 people has one doctor.

The Canadian government built a clinic on the island. Ritter said he was provided a house and a four-wheel-drive pickup during his missions.

"It is fairly primitive living," Ritter said. "There are very few tourists there."

Growing up in Jackson, Ritter wanted to be a conservation agent. But while recovering in Southeast Missouri Hospital after having an appendectomy his senior year in high school, Ritter decided to become a doctor. He did so to impress his girlfriend. But it didn't work: She dropped him.

His mother was thrilled by the idea and encouraged him to go to medical school.

After graduating from medical school, Ritter was set to enter the Peace Corps. But the Army drafted him in 1967 despite his poor eyesight.

"I was deferred four times," said Ritter, who wears glasses. "I couldn't see."

In the end, the military took him anyway, as it did a lot of other doctors at the height of the Vietnam War.

He spent two years in the Army during the war. He worked in a military hospital in Japan, treating wounded troops.

He returned home to Cape Girardeau in fall 1969, and began his medical practice.

He has been with the same medical group for 28 years. The group itself has changed its name to Cape Girardeau Physician Associates. Other doctors have come and gone over the years Ritter has been there.

The business pressures of the medical field have taken their toll.

On a recent Monday, Ritter put in 14 hours. Five of those hours were spent signing nursing-home forms and other paperwork.

Managed care also has placed more emphasis on the business of medicine.

Doctors today have to think like manufacturers. "You have to know how much it costs to see that patient," Ritter said.

With managed care, doctors make money if their patients are well. "When they are sick, you lose money," he said.

Ritter said he and other internists once provided much of the acute medical care locally. Today, much of that work is done by hospital emergency room doctors and specialists, he said.

Ritter always has taken an interest in Cape Girardeau. He served 14 years on the Cape Girardeau Board of Education.

Last March he filed for Congress on the Republican ticket. He said he wanted to promote community solutions to problems.

But Republican Party leaders pressured him to get out of the race rather than challenge then-Rep. Bill Emerson.

In May, Ritter withdrew his candidacy. Emerson died of lung cancer in June. His widow, Jo Ann Emerson, won election to the seat last month.

The experience soured Ritter on politics. "I think I have had enough politics," he said.