Following a 44-year career at Putnam General Hospital (PGH), Dr. Rakesh Kumar officially retired on Monday, with his departure marked by a simple but heartfelt ceremony and buffet held in the hospital’s cafeteria space.
Among the well-wishing attendees were Putnam County Commission Chairman Bill Sharp, County Commissioner Daniel Brown, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, PGH CEO Alan Horton, and several of Dr. Kumar’s fellow physicians, nurses, and other hospital personnel, along with his family.
Kumar, a native of India who received his early medical training there, said shortly after earning his U.S. doctorate in New York State, he was heading to Tallahassee, Fla. in 1980 when he made a stop in Eatonton.
He recalled meeting the local surgeon of the time, Dr. Wallace Gibson, who convinced Kumar to take over his practice “just for six months” while Gibson took care of his mother with cancer.
“So, I went to Dr. Gibson’s office and just never left town,” Kumar said.
Sharp spoke first, reading an official proclamation thanking the doctor for his career-long contributions to Putnam County’s healthcare and wishing him well in retirement. Sills followed and read from a letter he’d written and presented to Kumar six years earlier.
“I just mostly wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you. You have cared for me and four generations of my family along with thousands of others in this community. For a great many years, you’ve done so with kindness, compassion, and consummate professionalism,” Sills said.
“When you traveled halfway across the planet to settle in a small country town to care for and heal people of a different culture that you had absolutely no connection to, that in itself is a great testament to your character and professionalism,” the sheriff continued. “You could have gone anywhere and made much more money, but you chose to stay here and care for the people in Putnam County … I cannot adequately express just how much I personally admire and respect you. But I do want you to know that we all genuinely thank you for everything you do, Dr. Kumar, you are a real doctor.”
More than a few tears were shed as colleague after colleague from PGH stepped forward to share reminiscences and admiration for Kumar’s presence and influence over them.
“I started crying in church yesterday,” PGH Chief Nursing Officer Pam Douglas admitted. “There were four of us standing there crying at the First Baptist Church because Dr. Kumar was leaving … I was saying something like ‘Why are we so emotional?’ And it’s because of just such a personal connection that you’ve had with each and every one of us in this room.”
Douglas also officially presented a tabletop glass sculpture of a tea rose on behalf of the PGH medical staff.
“The tea rose has many spiritual traditions and it’s been associated with love, compassion, devotion, purity of heart and spiritual surrender. And it’s also believed to have some healing properties,” she said. “The scent of the tea rose is said to calm the mind, reduce stress and anxiety, and promote feelings of happiness and well-being. And that’s what you’ve done the entire time here. So, thank you Dr. Kumar for serving Putnam County with your honesty, your wisdom, your dedication, and your commitment.”
A particularly emotional tribute to Kumar came from Donna Van Haute, who began working for him as a 15-year-old while he was with Gibson “over by Shopper’s Pharmacy, down the long hall.”
“Dr. Kumar was our family doctor and my senior year, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, and when he got to the end, he was at home and Dr. Kumar came to our house every single day when he got off work. Every day he came and took care of him. And he came on Saturdays and he came on Sundays,” Van Haute recalled with clearly fond memories. “And those are the kind of doctors that we just don’t have anymore, but he’s taken care of all of us all these years.”
Other nurses praised Kumar for never raising his voice or treating them poorly during surgeries, for his impeccable memory when it came to patient details, right down to lab numbers and test results, and for “his professionalism, his intelligence, knowledge, and his good business acumen.”
Meanwhile, Kumar listened quietly, occasionally betrayed a smile, and deflected his praise back toward his longtime colleagues.
And now 75 with 50-plus years of practicing medicine behind him, Kumar said he plans to spend a lot of time “getting to know the Lord better” through reading scriptures. “Spiritual upliftment,” he called it.