Aaron Watters, MD

I was born in Colby, a small Western Kansas town. It was there I made a life decision to become a doctor. My mother was a Director of Nursing, and I started early in life working in the health care field.

At the age of 16, I started working at the hospital, became an EMT at 18 and worked in Respiratory Therapy to put myself through college and medical school. I began to realize that being a physician was a calling, not a job.

Residency in the trauma center in Houston was a grueling job, but it helped shape my dedication to medicine, and I learned that patient care was my gift. Family medicine residency was the best fit for me. The connection I felt to my patients confirmed this was where I was supposed to be.

I believed that being a physician could be my gift, calling and duty to humankind. I became a family doctor in Ark City, Kansas, for about 20 years. Over the years, I have watched the business of medicine escalate from 1.4 employees per doctor to over eight employees per doctor. Regulations have escalated, to say the least.

Through this, I remained a dedicated employee, a member of the hospital board and Chief of Staff. Together, with the hospital and local physicians, we designed and built a new hospital in Ark City. When City, State and Medicare regulations became too cumbersome, the hospital was given back to the city of Ark City to manage. For the last nine years, I have been an Emergency Room physician, director and hospitalist.