After 50 Years, Local Doc Will (Almost) Call It Quits
by John Stewart
Burlington Hawkeye, 1983

Dr. George D. Jenkins’ idea of retirement is different from most.

Jenkins, 79, will end his 50-year urology practice in Burlington this week---but will still be the visiting physician at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant.

His 50 years of service to the people of southeast Iowa and the Iowa Department of Health was recognized Thursday with a certificate signed by Gov. Terry Brandstad and presented by IDH representative Al Wendt.

Wendt, who was in Burlington from 1976 - 1980, said that for half a century, Jenkins has accepted needy patients referred by IDH and the county health center for no or little compensation.

“This is almost unheard of today,” Wendt said, and it “will be tough to replace him.”

Wendt said that Jenkins has been available and cooperative in many ways, advising him about a variety of communicable ailments and health problems---particularly those involving sexually transmitted diseases.

Since penicillin came into wide use after World War II, these diseases have become more manageable and less debilitating. Jenkins recalls holding weekly clinics Fridays at City Hall to treat such patients.

Of his public service, he said only “it was something that had to be done….I live here, I work here, so I think I am obligated to do something for the community.”

Between questions by a Hawk Eye reporter in his office in the F&M Bank building, patients called for help finding new physicians and a man visited who has been Jenkins’ patient since 1962.

Jenkins, born in Albia, graduated from the University of Iowa and served on the University Hospitals staff at Iowa City. Classmates and friends from Burlington encouraged him to come because the city needed a urologist.

He opened his practice here ( and began his public health affiliations) July 1, 1933, helping to launch what was one of the first county health centers.

Medical advances in Burlington during his career make it hard to compare 1933 and 1983. The best X-ray machines then were primitive cathode ray tubes---a far cry from the modern, computerized scanners which now vividly depict the body’s interior.

Jenkins served in Louisiana and at the U. S. Military Academy during five years of World War II, and recalls the national postwar polio epidemic.

“On the third floor of Mercy Hospital, there were 8 to 10 iron lungs working all the time. We set up a team of a surgeon, urologist and an ear, nose and throat (doctor)” to meet the threat. Once again, most of that work went unpaid, he said.

George DeWayne Jenkins