Physician retiring Nov. 1 after 33 years in NNY

After 33 years of practicing internal medicine in Lewis and Jefferson counties, Dr. Arshad J. Siddiqui will retire Nov. 1.

Dr. Siddiqui said he'll be sad to leave his patients, but he'll be happy to move closer to his grown children.

"Most of my patients I've seen for a quarter of a century; that's why it's so hard," he said. "Many of my patients, we're treating their third generation now."

He sent a letter Sept. 11 informing patients of the news.

After Nov. 1, Dr. Siddiqui will remain in the Watertown area for a few months before moving away. He said he isn't quite sure where he'll end up, but it'll be somewhere south.

When he first contemplated retiring last year, Dr. Siddiqui said, the only thing holding him back was that a proper arrangement for his patients to be taken care of by another physician wasn't set in stone. Now that Watertown Internists, 53-59 Public Square, has agreed to take on those patients and store their medical records, Dr. Siddiqui said, it's time to leave.

After completing an internal medicine residency at St. Vincent Medical Center, Staten Island, in 1976, Dr. Siddiqui was recruited to Carthage Area Hospital, where he worked out of a Harrisville office. He started his solo practice at 532 Coffeen St. in 1982 and has been there since.

The practice has as many as 2,500 accounts, but not all are active, Dr. Siddiqui said.

Over the past 30 years, he said, the way in which people practice medicine has changed significantly. Physicians have become too focused on technology and not on the patient, he said.

"A doctor can treat a disease, but a good doctor can treat the patient," he said.

His fondest north country moment, he said, was in the 1970s when a Harrisville farmer brought in his sick son. The farmer couldn't afford to pay the child's medical bill, but late that week he came back to the office and paid Dr. Siddiqui with two cleaned chickens from his farm.

"I've never forgotten that," he said. "It really touched me. I said to him, 'You know, I appreciate this more than if you paid me.' We were good friends after that."