Rescue Squad Volunteer. Housekeeping. Male Nursing Assistant. OR Tech. Doctor. Medical Director – All the Same Person

Eugene (Frankie) Johnson was a quiet kid. That same Frankie is still rather quiet today.

I am so thankful to have reconnected with Frankie during and post reunion. We talked about the past and present over the course of two nights at the reunion. I asked Frankie if he knew of any other Medical Doctors that came out of our class and he said he wasn’t aware of one. Frankie may, in fact, be the only MD of our class.

I asked Frankie if he would mind writing up a bio or story to include on this site. He told me, “It won’t be as short as Marty’s”. I laughed and told him that was not a problem and I thanked him for considering.

Frankie recently hosted a cookout at his house after the rescheduling (thanks to storm named Helene) of the Princeton Tigers Homecoming on September 28, 2024. That is when Frankie gave me this bio. I am grateful to Frankie to hosting some of us “Old Tigers” and he graciously provided me with a copy of My Life for the Last 50 Years.

This is Frankie’s story, in his own words.

Since graduating from High School, I have always been in love with medicine and helping people. It started when I joined the Princeton Rescue Squad at 16 years of age. I became an instructor in advanced first aid, instructor in CPR and ACLS, and an Emergency Medical Technician.

After graduation I went to Bluefield State College for one year but stopped because I wanted a break from school.

Got a job at Princeton Community Hospital in housekeeping where I worked for one year when an opening came up as a male nursing assistant in the operating room which I got the position. While working as a nursing assistant in the OR a class was offered for Operating Room Technician which I got into the class and became an ORT. Worked as an operating room technician for seven years.

While working as an ORT I decided that I wanted to become a doctor instead of working for them. I started in premed and major in biology at Concord College in 1977. Princeton Hospital started a night shift in the Operating Room so I could go to school and work nights. After three years of college, I applied to West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine thinking I would be turned down but to get my foot in the door. To my surprise I was selected to be in the class of 1980.

During Medical school I got to travel all over the US in class rotations. I graduated from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in 1984. Next, I did my training in Emergency Medicine at Warren Medical Center in Ohio.

I worked in Warren Ohio until 1987 when a friend called me to come, and work for him at Summers County Hospital in Hinton. This is when I returned to the beautiful state of West Virginia.

As an Emergency Room Doctor I worked at several local hospitals such as Summer County Hospital where after 1 year I became the Director of Summers County Hospital, Princeton Community Hospital, Saint Lukes Hospital, Beckley Hospital, Plateau Medical Center, and Welch Community Hospital. I worked as an Emergency Room Physician for 30 years. I had training as an Advanced Cardiac Life Support Instructor, Basic Trauma Life Support Instructor, and Advanced Trauma Life Support. During my time as an Emergency Room Physician, I was the West Virginia Region 1 Medical Director of Southern West Virginia for 15 years, West Virginia Region 1 Critical Care Committee Chairperson for 15 years, Bluefield State Medical Director for 5 years. I also had a love for scuba diving and was certified before going to Medical School having over 500 dives. I was trained in the sub-specialty as a Diving Accident and Hyperbaric Medicine Physician.

Now for some of my personal life I was working at Summer County Hospital and a cute lab technician asked me out on a date, but due to my busy schedule I could not go out. She was persistent and asked me out again after about a week, but once again I was busy and could not go out. She finally came back a third time with a calendar and said if you want to go out then you pick a date. I did and we went out and it was about a year later in 1988 that we were married. Went to Disney World and Disney Cruise for our honeymoon and went back to Disney World for 10 straight years. Dianne had one sone whose name was Stephen, and I adopted him to be my son.

My wife Dianne was from Ham(p)ton, Virginia and had almost drowned as a teenager and was afraid of water, but she knew how much I loved scuba diving, and she broke through her fear and was certified in scuba diving also. We got to dive from Bonaire, to Mexico, to South America, to all the island in the Atlantic, and to Hawaii and everywhere in between.

While I was working at Welch Community Hospital several of my patients were asking the nurses if everything was okay with the doctor, I had a blueish color. The nurses set me down and tested my oxygen saturation and it was in the 60’s. I was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis; this was in 2014. Because of this I had to use oxygen 24/7 and had no energy, forcing me to retire. I needed oxygen and help for about 1 year and then God healed me. I gradually kept getting better until I no longer needed oxygen, pulmonary function test normal now, but the chest x-ray still shows Pulmonary Fibrosis. I have now lived 10 years after being diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis.

My wife Dianne contracted Adrenal Insufficiency and passed away in 2022, but God has been good to me. I was blessed to have been married for 34 years. Many other things have happened in my life since graduating from high school. Had a 250-foot driveway falling onto my neighbor’s yard, house fire and living in a motel for over 6 months and many more but all of this is another story for another time.