We're revisiting people who made news in 2010 with a series that continues until the end of the year. Look for another story on the Metro front today.
DR. DAVID B. NICHOLS
WHY YOU KNOW HIM: He's a mainland physician who has long served Tangier Island.
WHAT'S NEW: Diagnosed with cancer, Nichols is fighting for his life.
Tangier Island needed a physician, and Dr. David B. Nichols answered the call.
For 31 years, Nichols traveled to Tangier almost every week — on his day off from his mainland practice. He typically piloted his own plane or helicopter unless the weather failed to cooperate, in which case he showed up by boat.
He treated just about every imaginable medical condition in a place that had no resident physician. The clinic where he toiled was an aging building that in recent years had a leaky roof, no hot water and outdated equipment.
So it was with great joy that islanders anticipated the opening in August of a new, ultra-modern medical center built with gifts and grants, largely from friends on the mainland. However, that elation was greatly muted by the time the big day came.
Only weeks earlier, Nichols had discovered he had inoperable cancer. He was told he probably had mere months to live. He would never practice medicine in the facility he dreamed of for so long, a facility that now bears his name.
The national Country Doctor of the Decade is now the patient, and his body has begun to fail him. He has lost weight, walks uneasily and requires a portable oxygen supply. He quit an experimental treatment because he believed it was making him sicker. He fills his days in the company of family and friends. When he's felt up to it, he has visited Tangier, flying in the unfamiliar passenger seat as his son, Davy, pilots the plane.
Though he never lived on Tangier, the Canadian-born Nichols is home when he is there. He is practically a native son.
"I shall miss my friends on Tangier Island," he said last week. "I wish I could turn everything around but know reality is coming. I am growing weary of some constant pain and markedly diminished quality-of-life issues.
"All that said, I still maintain a fairly positive outlook."
Bill Lohmann
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