Local doctor made honorary citizen

Joachim Henggeler has been the village doctor in the municipality of Oberägeri for more than 40 years, and, at the age of 73, he still works two days a week. Recently, the local community conferred honorary citizenship on him, and deservedly so.
 
It is not so surprising to learn that Henggeler became a medical professional, bearing in mind both his father and grandfather were doctors, too. Following qualification, he worked initially in obstetrics at the Limmattal Hospital in Schlieren in the canton of Zurich before subsequently taking on appointments at the then Zug Burger hospital and later at a rehabilitation clinic in Bellikon in the canton of Argovia. It was in 1977 that he took over his father’s practice, at a time, of course, when there were not so many specialist gynaecologists in the area and computer tomography and MRI scans were very rare. “I also recall people did not tend to move around so much as they do these days,” said Henggeler, adding how back in those days there were no mobile telephones, either. “I would be out making a home call and have to phone up my wife, Margrith, from there to find out where I was supposed to go next. And if ever I was on night duty, my wife was woken by the call, too, of course.”
 
Not that he has been a stick-in-the-mud as major changes have affected doctors over the years, too. “I have been an electronic doctor for the past ten years,” he said, no signs of books or old files in his surgery. He has also abandoned his white overall, too. “I want to speak to patients eye-to-eye at the same level; I do not want to appear like some semi-god in white to them.” Indeed, it is as a result of this common touch he has and his modest manner that he remains so popular. No need to look up so much about his patients’ medical histories online, either. He has known so many of their family members over the years and can still remember the various ailments and illnesses which affected them.
 
Not that Henggeler has devoted himself solely to medicine in the community either. In his time, he has been a member of the local fire brigade and the equivalent of the “St John’s Ambulance Service”, too, to mention just two associations.
 
Dr Henggeler, a father of three, realises, of course, that he cannot continue practising as a doctor until he is 100, hence he is looking for a successor, though this is not easy. “How can I lure someone to come up here into the Aegeri Valley?” he asked. It was in part because of this realisation that, in so many ways, Dr Henggeler is irreplaceable, that it was decided to confer honorary citizenship upon him at a ceremony which was very well attended and at which locals’ gratitude came across, something which he greatly appreciated.
 
As to how the future looks, this is all uncertain of course. “I just hope that, in about a year’s time, I will be able to stand down. This will then give me the opportunity to take more care of my wife, and try to give back to her what she has given to me over the years.”