Talbert to retire after 57 years of cardiology work at Saint Francis

In the past 57 years, professionals in the medical field have witnessed multiple changes and innovations. One doctor in Cape Girardeau can say he's been a part of much of that evolution in the world of cardiology.

Cardiology doctor Clifford Talbert Jr. has seen all that and more over his time at Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Talbert will be retiring from cardiology at the end of June, after 57 years dedicated to his patients and the hospital.

Before landing in Cape Girardeau, Talbert went through an internship and residency at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis going through his fellowship at the University of Missouri. After that, going military service, he came to the Cape Girardeau in 1965 to work with Saint Francis.

Achievements

Through the doctor's time as part of Cape Girardeau's medical community, Talbert has had his fair share of firsts and new experiences. He said he remembers when defibrillators were fairly new in cardiology, after asking for them at one time early in his career a nurse replied "I think I know what you mean.",

"She ran out the room and came back about five minutes later, with a beautiful box about 18 inches long, and I opened it and on a velvet cloth was lying two internal defibrillator panels. They were two big handles with two metal plates at the end of them and to shock the heart," Talbert said. "They're attached to a long cord about as big as the jump-start cables for your car and I said do you have a big box to go with these so we could plug these into it. She said, 'Oh yes, but we threw that away a long time ago, because we never used it."

At that time Talbert said he realized the hospital needed a coronary intensive care unit. He said after that Saint Francis opened up such a unit.

Talbert said in 1969, the American Heart Association of Missouri gave Saint Francis a grant to have a cardiovascular nurse, Karen Hendrickson.

"She was the first cardiovascular nurse in Southeast Missouri, and we sent her around to various hospitals and communities that had hospitals in Southeast Missouri," Talbert said. "Preparing them to show them how to do intensive care, monitoring of patients, how to read EKGs (electrocardiograms) and help them prevent heart attacks."

In 1967, Talbert was one of the first people in Southeast Missouri to help surgically place a pacemaker into a patient.

"That woman had a 23 heart rate and was slowly dying from not having an adequate pulse to circulate the body; knees were going bad, too. She lived for eight years after that," Talbert said. "They [pacemakers] came on the market, we saw an opportunity and bought the pacemakers and started doing them from that point."

Longevity and perspective in the field

Talbert said he always wants to make progress on a patient even in the face of a "do-no-wrong" mentality.

"The most [important] thing in the practice of medicine, whether you're talking about heart disease or anything is to do no wrong, for the physician to do no wrong. If you don't do anything at all you can't really do anything wrong, you won't be criticized as a doctor," Dr. Talbert said. "If you want to treat the patient and get paid, you will do things with the patient and take a risk that some problem may occur. But you make progress, and you won't just send the patient out of the hospital with the same thing they came in with, 1% altered."

Talbert said it's always hard, but necessary, to keep up with the change of the industry.

"It's always hard. That's why I had to go to these meetings once or twice a year. Little meetings, big meetings but in particular big meetings where innovations were present," Dr. Talbert said.

Activities outside of cardiology

Talbert has also been a part of Cape Girardeau in a larger part than just a doctor or a citizen, but also formerly the owner of the now closed Plaza Galleria along with his late wife, Bettie Talbert, who passed away Oct. 4, 2020.

He said instead of investing their money somewhere else, they invested into the community with owning the former Kroger's building and turning it into an ice rink.

"Instead of putting stores in the building, we thought it would be best to make it an ice rink, the same as the one in the Galleria in Dallas. Put that in and redesigned the building, ran that for 21 years," he said.

The couple along with running the Plaza Galleria were donors to Southeast Missouri State University. In 2018, the university awarded them the Friends of the University award.

Talbert has three sons across different states, and after he retires he plans to travel to see each of his sons.

"I'm probably going to buy a bumper sticker that says, 'Get even -- live long enough to be a problem for your children.' So, I go from one of my three sons to another, when one son kicks me out, I'll go over to the next one, and maybe by the time I get through the third one, the first one will say you can come back for another week or two."