Zahn sticks to ideals during career

After practicing pediatric medicine for 40 years, Dr. Robert Zahn hung up his stethoscope in 1999 and picked up his golf bag. He retired from St. John's Health System, having spent the better part of his career there.

Zahn is being honored by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce as one of the four honorees in the Salute to Health Care.

He originally worked at Cox North and at a small Baptist hospital, which is now Lakeland Regional.

After graduating from Missouri Valley College with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, Zahn was drafted into the Army Chemical Corps and was stationed in Maryland for two years. Upon being released from the Army in 1952, Zahn attended medical school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

"They were the first one that said they'd accept me, so real quick I sent the check in," he joked.

The first time he was asked why he wanted to be a doctor was during his medical school entrance interview.

"I was a country boy off the dairy farm, so I wasn't sophisticated in interviews. I said, Well, I've been thinking, and I figure that's the best thing I'm qualified to do to help people."

Zahn said the comment came off the top of his head, but it impressed the interviewers, who encouraged him to maintain that attitude.

Today, Zahn encourages medical students to stick to their ideals.

"Most of us go into medical school with quite high ideals, and it's easy to get them beat down," he said.

"Ideals are ideals, and you have to keep striving for them. If you give up, you lost, and so did the people you're trying to help."

Zahn said when he graduated and began practicing medicine, he soon realized he couldn't answer everything.

"When you get out of school, you think you're pretty smart. I found out you can still learn a lot." He added that he often learned things from the mothers who brought their children in for appointments.

"There was never a week went by that I didn't learn something new or different from a mother from their experience and opinions."

He said he was pleasantly surprised about 15 or 20 years ago when he began seeing more fathers bringing children to appointments. Zahn said if he could change one thing about society, it would be to have one parent stay home with children.

"If neither parent is there, the kids frequently end up with difficulties," Zahn said.

Working with children and parents was what Zahn liked the most about his job. Watching the children grow up and mature was rewarding, he said.

The most common advice he gave to parents over the years was to simply "be parents."

"You can be close, but their closest friends should be their husband or wife when they grow up," Zahn said.

Zahn said he often had to remind parents to be in charge and discipline their children.

"Discipline and punishment are two different things. Punishment is what you get when you don't respond to discipline. Discipline is teaching the art of self control," he said.

Zahn said he chose to enter pediatrics because "there's more joy in it. With so many other branches of medicine, you're at the termination of people's life."

Over the years, Zahn served on a number of committees and boards, and he continues to do so in his retirement. He's a frequent volunteer at his church, King's Way United Methodist, and he is a member of the Reading Buddy program at Wilder Elementary School.

He also spends more time these days on the greens.

"Naturally I play golf. It's obligatory when you retire to play golf," he said.

Looking back, Zahn said he is happy to have spent 40 years in a working relationship with "the most basic unit of society. I got to interact with the most important unit in the whole world families."