Category: Tarrant County

by Teresa Godbey, MD
2020 Gold-Headed Cane Recipient

This piece was originally published in the November/December issue of the Tarrant County Physician. You can read find the full magazine here.

Let me start and finish by saying “thank you.” Receiving the Gold-Headed Cane is a humbling experience for me, because I am not really a scientist, nor procedurally gifted, not an expert in any particular field of Medicine, have never published a scholarly article, and am not even currently on the front line of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It’s been several years since I got out of bed to come to the hospital in the middle of the night, and even then it was often to call in the person who would do the procedure or make the decision that would be critical for our patients. 

With a B.A. in English literature and a lot of courses in languages, I came late to the realization that I needed to apply to medical school. And I would not have done so had I not had a mother who was willing to keep an infant son so I could start all those math and science prerequisites, and a father who’d made it possible for her to be a stay-at-home mother and grandmother. So thanks to my wonderful parents. This decision to go into Medicine seemed to some like an abrupt change of pursuit, but for me, the unifying theme between my undergraduate studies and the practice of Medicine has been the privilege of learning people’s stories.  In practicing Medicine, one can even help to bring about a plot twist or be a minor character in the story . . . but to hear what came before from disparate walks of life, then facilitate the ability of the patient to make their story unfold has been my motivation. 

Some of those stories still make me smile years later.  The patient who volunteered to run a small cemetery in a tiny town was at the cemetery when the grave for her mother, who had died at 103, was freshly dug. She met a young couple visiting in search of ancestral lore. In the process of helping them find a headstone of interest, she managed to back up and fall into her mother’s grave, sustaining a tib-fib fracture. Somehow, she managed to laugh at and see the mythic overtones of that painful experience.  So many patients have shared their triumphs in life with me, with luck as well as gumption helping us all along the way. Sometimes luck is better than gumption. There was the decision to call a surgeon to see a middle-aged man, to remove a large obstructive right colon mass even though this mass, surely a malignancy, must have metastasized given its dimensions.  The surgery was going to be diagnostic and palliative but proved curative when a plastic cocktail sword was found at the center of a large inflammatory mass. 

Then there are the gut-wrenching stories of loss and the staggering abilities of some people to keep putting one foot in front of the other . . . the woman who witnessed one of her sons shoot and kill another. How she managed to grieve the loss of one of her boys, while still being a mother to the one who went to prison astounds me to this day.  I can only hope that allowing her to relate this to me was in some way beneficial to her, but her strength and grace were such that I’m not sure I was needed.

It can be discouraging now to practice in an environment of corporate intrusion, such as to be told on which shelf the lubricant must be kept in the exam room, or to be coached to attest to diagnoses based on flimsy or inaccurate data. There are those of you who are gifted with a scalpel, a scope, a cath; those who can calm the chaos of the ER for a quiet moment to see a diagnosis coalesce.  I suspect those abilities make it easier to keep a sense of purpose, so for those of us who are PCPs, let this be my plea. Hear the patient. Hear their story. See them. Feel them. There are times that I hear from a patient, “That doctor just came to the door, and never even examined me.” So yes, I know that current guidelines put ever less emphasis on certain parts of the physical exam, but please, keep honing your skills. The time spent on physical exam may not all be of value statistically. But when the unnecessary oral exam or rectal exam turns up a cancer, it changes your story as well as the patient’s. Plus, the patient who gets a rectal exam won’t tell someone else that you just came to the door. For those of us in primary care, using our senses is the only way we can, so to speak, change the ending. 

And now, a few more people to thank: Dr. Stephen Eppstein, for driving from Fort Worth to Dallas on the one day of the week he could have relaxed a little, to be the town attending for my Internal Medicine rotation in 1984 . The town attending is the one you can ask the questions you might be embarrassed to ask your regular attending, like: Why aren’t there viral UTIs when there’s viral everything else?  Dr. Kendra Belfi, the first female internist I really got to know, and who took such good care of my mother and my aunt.  All the wonderful doctors in the Texas Club of Internists with whom I’ve enjoyed education and recreation over the years: thanks for waiting until the old guard died off so you could finally change the bylaws and let women in—in 1997. My son, Noah Boydston, for turning out mostly OK, and loving me even though I was away so much when he was little.  Oh, and if you have to wait until age 48 to meet the love of your life, Leighton Clark was worth the wait. Thank you all. 

Gold-Headed Cane Award Recipient Teresa Godbey, MD

By Allison Howard

This piece was originally published in the November/December issue of the Tarrant County Physician. You can read find the full magazine here.

If Teresa Godbey, MD, has one piece of advice for physicians early in their careers, it is to develop relationships with their colleagues. “Find at least one group where you want to go to meetings. You need other people. It’s fine to read and educate yourself on your own, but you need at least one regularly attended organized group.” 

Dr. Godbey, TCMS’ 2020 Gold-Headed Cane Award recipient, is speaking from experience. In October, she retired after 33 years of practicing Internal Medicine in Fort Worth. Throughout her career, she has been a member of the Texas Club of Internists, the Texas Medical Association, and the Tarrant County Medical Society. “I don’t know what I would do without them.”

Though Dr. Godbey has long been involved in the medical community, becoming a physician was not her original plan. She got her undergraduate degree in English, but when she finished college, Dr. Godbey was unsure of her future career. She worked at Xerox for a year but soon realized that she wanted to go a completely different direction. Dr. Godbey was a new mother at the time, and she wanted stability and independence—and to do something that she loved. When she realized her interest and abilities converged at Medicine, she started down that path and never looked back. She began attending classes at UTA to get the necessary prerequisites to apply to medical school.

While the decision was sudden, the inspiration was not. Many people from her past influenced Dr. Godbey—from her beloved childhood pediatrician, Dr. Frank Cohen, to a favorite high school teacher, Valda “Frau C.” Carroll, who suffered from multiple sclerosis—these important individuals planted seeds that would impact her future. When the opportunity arose for Dr. Godbey to go back to school, her vision was clear: she was going to become a physician.

“Dr. Godbey has always been the type of physician I aspire to be myself.  She has remained passionate about and fiercely committed to her patients, even in these times of increasingly heavy burden of clerical activities which constantly seek to burn us out and pull us away from the joy of direct patient care.”

Not everyone shared her enthusiasm. Between her young son and her English degree, Dr. Godbey’s academic counselor did not think she was a serious candidate for medical school. Dr. Godbey was told that she had to make A’s in all of her classes. “Thankfully, I was very confident then!” laughs Dr. Godbey. “That didn’t worry me.” No, she was not concerned about her math or science classes—it was PE that made her nervous. “PE was the class that really scared me. I intentionally got my undergraduate degree at a college that didn’t require it, but UTA was making me take PE. The only thing that would fit between the math and science courses and labs was racquetball. Racquetball!” Dr. Godbey remembers in dismay. Though racquetball was not her strong suit, her coach was fortunately more focused on dedication than ability. She completed all of her classes—even racquetball—with excellent grades and was accepted into medical school at UT Southwestern in 1980.

Dr. Godbey emphasizes that she did not go on this journey alone; she believes she never would have become a physician without the support of her mother. “She watched my son, Noah, for me. She loved it and made it possible for me to go back to school,” says Dr. Godbey. “I never could have done this without her.” 

Once in medical school, Dr. Godbey began to consider the different specialties she could pursue. Everything came into focus during the beginning of her third-year rotations when she realized that she wanted to practice Internal Medicine. Dr. Godbey was originally considering a career as an OB/GYN, but when she recognized her love of interactions with patients during her medicine rotation and saw the appeal of building decades-spanning relationships with her patients, she shifted her focus, deciding to apply for a residency in Internal Medicine. She was accepted into Parkland Hospital’s residency program in 1984 and was hired by Internal Medicine Associates in 1987. She stayed with the group through mergers and acquisitions her entire career.

During her years in practice, Dr. Godbey developed the longstanding relationships she had hoped for with many of her patients. “My patients have aged with me for the most part,” she says. She also enjoyed the fact that primary care treats an expansive range of healthcare needs. While numerous patients and cases were significant throughout her career, one success comes to mind as a win she will never forget. A woman diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum had been sick in the hospital for weeks. She had been put on IVs and TPN, but as time went on, her condition continued to deteriorate. Numerous physicians had seen her, but they could not determine the root of the problem. When Dr. Godbey was called in, she looked at the chart and immediately saw something concerning. “I remembered Dr. Leonard Madison talking about beriberi when I was in medical school, which is thiamin deficiency. It was just there, on her chart. No thiamin.” At that time, there was a shortage of thiamin nationally, so it was not included in TPN. Since patients were generally not on TPN for an extended period of time it was not an issue, but because this woman had been using it for weeks, the deficiency was causing her significant distress. They quickly added an additional thiamin supplement to her IV, and within a day she had recovered and was on her way home. As much as it was an exciting experience for Dr. Godbey, she defers the credit to her medical school professor: “She got better thanks to Dr. Madison and his lecture on beriberi!” 

“I don’t know of any doctor who deserves this award more. She is the most caring doctor I have ever known, always putting her patients’ needs and well-being above all else.”

Dr. Godbey’s colleagues emphasize that it is her complete dedication to patient care that characterizes her as a physician. Jennifer Arnouville, MD, says, “Dr. Godbey has always been the type of physician I aspire to be myself.  She has remained passionate about and fiercely committed to her patients, even in these times of increasingly heavy burden of clerical activities which constantly seek to burn us out and pull us away from the joy of direct patient care.”

Over the years, Dr. Godbey certainly saw the practice of Medicine change, much as her own practice developed. What was once a group of seven or eight physicians has grown into what is now USMD, which is part of the even larger OptumCare. Though there were many adjustments, some things stayed the same. Ed Nelson, MD, one of the physicians who hired Dr. Godbey 33 years ago, continued with the practice alongside her. Dr. Nelson, Lee Forshay, MD, and Tom Davis, MD, were the partners at Internal Medicine Associates when Dr. Godbey joined the practice. She is grateful to have had the opportunity to work with these physicians; they helped shape who she is as a physician and her approach to patient care. 

Reflecting back on when Dr. Godbey was hired, Dr. Nelson says the group could not have made a better choice. “What we couldn’t know then is what a great doctor she would be for the next 33 years. She and I have been associates, colleagues, and friends that whole time. I don’t know of any doctor who deserves this award more. She is the most caring doctor I have ever known, always putting her patients’ needs and well-being above all else.”

A number of physicians have supported Dr. Godbey throughout her career, including Stephen Eppstein, MD, and Roger Eppstein, MD; this father and son pair impacted Dr. Godbey in different but significant ways. Dr. Stephen Eppstein was her town attending in medical school, the person she could go to if she ever had a question or needed direction. “He was the safe one to ask for help,” she shares. He was also the one who directed her to Internal Medicine Associates. Dr. Roger Eppstein was one of her longtime partners at USMD. Dr. Nelson and Dr. Roger Eppstein were in her “pod” at the clinic and were often the physicians Dr. Godbey turned to for advice on difficult cases and to discuss new regulations or the state of Medicine. Even though she was in a large practice, the longstanding relationships she developed over time helped her overcome the isolation that can be a struggle in corporate medicine.

As she mentioned in her message to young physicians, Dr. Godbey believes that participating in organized medicine is an important part of connecting with fellow doctors and staying up to date on changes in the profession. “It’s a critical way to build relationships and meet people that can support you in your career that you can also support,” says Dr. Godbey. “I always know that TMA and TCMS are there for me—I would feel completely out of touch if I didn’t have the bulletins from TMA and Tarrant County Medical Society. New rules, new regulations, what’s happening currently with the pandemic. They keep me informed.”

Organized medicine also provides leadership opportunities and chances to break barriers, as Dr. Godbey experienced firsthand. When she was first considered for membership by the Texas Club of Internists, they required a 100 percent vote to add new members; because of this, a number of Internists, including minorities and females, were not accepted. Finally, in 1997, the Club amended their bylaws to fight these exclusionary practices. Dr. Godbey was the first female physician to attend a Club meeting, become a regular participant of the group, and ultimately, become the president; she served in that role in 2014. “It was amazing to see the how things changed—they barely let me in, and not 20 years later I was their president,” shares Dr. Godbey. She has seen other positive shifts over the years, such as rising numbers of female medical students. “It was 20 percent women when I went to medical school—now it is over 50 percent.” 

While encouraged by the developments she has seen, Dr. Godbey believes that it is critical to continue advocating for minority and female physicians and any other groups that are not given full access to opportunities. Not just because doing so is best for individuals—it is also best for the practice of Medicine.  

While advocacy and involvement are important, Dr. Godbey cautions young physicians to maintain work/life balance. Overall, she is encouraged by what she sees. “Younger doctors are better at prioritizing their homelife than we used to be,” she admits. “Don’t let go of that balance. Keep your interests outside of Medicine—reading, gardening, exercise. Whatever it is, it helps you keep your purpose in focus.”

When she in not busy Dr. Godbey enjoys hiking, cooking, and reading. Most of all, she loves to spend time with her family, including her husband, Leighton Clark, and their children. They have a blended family, which has added many blessings to Dr. Godbey’s life. “I had one son and I ended up with two sons and three daughters,” she shares. Between the two of them they have Noah, Philip, and Meredith; daughters-in-law Ashley and Mary; and granddaughters Marianne, Elinor, and Prudence. Dr. Godbey also shares a close relationship with her sister, Susan Pantle. Whenever possible, she and Leighton enjoy spending time with Susan and her husband, Mark. 

Some things have come full circle; now that she is retired, Dr. Godbey and her husband will help watch their youngest grandchild, much as Dr. Godbey’s mother took care of Noah all those years ago when she was in medical school. “I’m excited to have the chance to give back,” says Dr. Godbey. “And to get to spend more time with Prue. I love taking care of my granddaughters.” 

Dr. Godbey’s colleagues view her career as one hallmarked by commitment to her patients; her passion for excellence and empathy in providing care is something well known throughout Tarrant County’s medical community. “Dr. Godbey has been a role-model and mentor for me throughout the years that I’ve been in practice,” says Dr. Roger Eppstein. “Always a ‘doctor’s doctor,’ she has practiced evidence-based, compassionate Medicine throughout her career.  It is no wonder why her patients have been so loyal to her.  She has been practicing thoughtful ‘value-based medicine’ even before anyone coined this term.”

In acknowledgment of Dr. Godbey’s outstanding career, the Tarrant County Medical Society is proud to congratulate her as the 2020 Gold-Headed Cane Award recipient.