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News Release
9/21/2009
Rockland Pediatrician Retires with 46 Years of Service
"He’s a legend in his own time," says Nancy Foster, in reference to her boss of  nearly nine years, Dr. Emery Howard. Dr. Howard, a member of the Penobscot Bay Physicians and Associates, has been serving families of midcoast Maine for 46 years. He will be retiring at the end of September. With so many years of service under his belt, it’s no wonder Howard is referred to as a legend.
According to Dr. Dana Goldsmith, Vice President of Medical Affairs, and a fellow pediatrician, Dr. Howard is "a devoted and respected pediatrician who dedicated his life to improving the health of infants and children in the midcoast for nearly 50 years."
"He's seen things we'll never see, worked harder than we will ever work and has been an advocate for the children of this community since the rest of us were in diapers. The department of Pediatrics, in fact the whole community, owes him a great debt. Dr. Howard will be missed," said Dr. Susan McKinley, a colleague and fellow pediatrician, when asked about Howard's career.
Howard says that throughout his 46-year career as a pediatrician he has "never regretted a single day" what he is doing. He has decided to retire now and use his continuing good health for more recreational purposes. A one-time golf pro to earn money for medical school, Howard is going to be playing "lots of golf."
A self-described "idealist with brains" in high school, Howard wanted to use his intelligence to help people. He enrolled in the University of Maine for dentistry. In his second year, he decided he’d like to work on the whole person, not just the mouth, so he went to Tufts Medical School.
When asked how he got into pediatrics, Howard said, "I didn’t want to be a GP (General Practitioner) because adults are quite sissy, they complain a lot. Kids do beautifully as long as you tell them what to expect."
Howard describes his career as "exciting and rewarding." He has had hundreds of 'best moments' over the past 46 years, from house calls to the excitement of assisting in-office surgeries, to the challenge of treating children who were very sick with meningitis.
He says that he is appreciative of the vaccines that have been developed to treat diseases like meningitis despite the fact that they have caused his day-to-day work to become less exciting. He even tried to make the vaccination process more fun for him and easier for the patient with his "count method" in which he told the child to look away while he gave them the shot on the count of 10. By the time he reached 10, the shot had already been given and the child didn’t even notice because they were so caught up in waiting for the count to reach 10.
Patients and families admire Howard’s expertise and direct manner. A recent thank you note from a second-generation patient said, "We appreciated your sound, right-to-the-point dialogue." Though most who have encountered Dr. Howard share this patient’s grateful opinion, Dr. Howard is not worried about those who don’t.
He says the best piece of advice he was given as a young medical student was from one of his professors: "Not everybody is going to like you and you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt and don’t worry about it." Howard believes this is valuable advice for any person.
The best advice Howard has to pass on is to "listen to the parents. Ninety-nine percent of the time they know when their child isn’t feeling right." He has listened to the parents of 3 generations of children, and Howard says he will "miss all the mothers and kids. They’ve all been wonderful and I’ve really enjoyed what I’m doing."
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