By Haley Davis
Staff Reporter
Dr. Wayne Capooth, a physician, author and professed duck-hunting historian, has joined the staff at Student Health Services after working for 30 years as an emergency room physician.
Capooth, though, isn’t entirely new to The University of Memphis or Student Health Services. He attended school at The U of M in the 1960s and served as a part-time physician for Health Services in 1995.
Before attending The University, Capooth went to the University of Alabama on a football scholarship, where he played for legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant in 1962. He said his experience with Bryant was a positive one, but obviously tough.
“He took us to the breaking point, physically and mentally,” Capooth said.
He returned to Memphis two years later to complete the required courses for entrance into the University of Tennessee’s medical program.
“(Being a doctor) was something I always wanted to do since the age of five,” Capooth said. “Nobody in my family had ever been a doctor.”
After graduating from medical school in 1970, Capooth accepted a job in Topeka, Kan., where he worked for 10 years. He returned to Memphis in 1981, and was employed as a physician in the emergency department of Methodist Hospital South. He remained there until 1994 before working for Baptist Hospital DeSoto in Southaven, Miss., until May of this year.
During his years in the emergency room, Capooth said he discovered he had other talents aside from pulling off 12-hour shifts in the hospital. On his days off, he found that he had a knack for writing and eventually wrote three books, one of which he published himself. Capooth’s first book, “History of the Milsaps,” is a book based on genealogy, while his second and third books reflect another one of his true loves — duck hunting.
In “Red Letter Days,” his second book, Capooth shares stories of his and his two sons’ hunting excursions. His third book, “The Golden Age of Waterfowling,” provides a historical look at duck hunting from the days of the Civil War through 1940.
After finishing his last book, Capooth began looking for a slower-paced environment in the medical world and found his way back to The U of M last month.
Katrina McKinney, a senior English major, said she’s glad the center has someone with Capooth’s emergency experience.
“Someone with an emergency background would be a really great thing to have,” she said. “Students don’t go in there for routine check-ups. It’s usually for things that come about on the fly.”
Capooth said he wants to make students like McKinney aware of everything Health Services can provide for them. He said many aren’t even aware the center exists.
“We try to treat everything here and what we can’t, we send out to other docs,” he said. He said the clinic, which is open Monday through Friday, is not only equipped to perform routine X-rays, but also provides vaccinations, including one for flu and meningitis.
