At birth he was given the rather awkward name of Lelon. To this day he’s not sure why. His father’s given name was Lealand, although his discharge papers from the Navy listed him as Lelon.

It doesn’t really matter because for as long as he can remember, Lelon O. Edwards, MD, has been known as Bubba, a nickname given to him by his sister. His staff at Pediatrics East calls him Dr. Bubba. His patients call him Dr. Bubba. His wife, Debbie, calls him Bubba.

“It does pretty well for a pediatrician,” he said. “I’m not sure a neurosurgeon would want to go by ‘Dr. Bubba.’”

It does take some getting used to.

“I’ve had comments from grandmothers in New Jersey who said their grandchild is absolutely not gonna go to a doctor named Bubba,” he said. “And then the grandmother comes down here and we get along fine.”

Edwards is a true son of West Tennessee, having been born in Memphis and raised in Dyersburg and then Ripley. He earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Tennessee at Martin, then a medical degree in Memphis from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine.

He did his residency at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, where he also worked in the ER for four years, and joined Pediatrics East in 1988. He hasn’t budged from Memphis since his first day in med school.

“Probably the biggest reason is that all my friends are here – our family friends, church friends – everybody’s here,” he said. “Le Bonheur was a natural transition after I finished my residency. Pediatrics East was right there in front of me. This has been a practice opportunity that I don’t think I could duplicate anywhere else.”

Over the years, a couple of things have taken Edwards by surprise. When he decided on pediatrics, he never expected he would be dealing with so many issues such as ADD, learning problems, behavior problems, depression and anxiety. Some days, he says, he feels as if he’s practicing pediatric psychiatry.

But the one thing he said that has really changed in pediatrics is vaccines – “the hugest impact on healthcare you can imagine.” And so it boggles his mind that there is still resistance to getting them. He cited H. flu meningitis, chicken pox and rotavirus as scourges that vaccines made disappear.

“Dr. (William) Threlkeld, our senior partner, used to say 20 years ago that a pediatrician’s job is literally to vaccinate yourself out of business.’ I thought that was funny,” he said. “You look at it now and it’s had a huge impact on the kind of illnesses you see in the office and what you don’t see. It’s amazing.”

Thus, you can imagine the doctor’s frustration when a patient declines to be vaccinated. Last month, as he was doing back-to-school check-ups, an 18-year-old told him she didn’t want the Hepatitis A vaccine.

“And she didn’t want the tetanus booster, which she hadn’t had now in 12 years,” he said. “She said, ‘I’ll just take my chances with that. We have to get the meningitis vaccine to go to school, and that’s all I’m gonna get.’

“You just don’t get it that these things will save your life.”

Still, he believes the anti-vaccine mentality among parents – generated largely by Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s assertion that vaccines can cause autism – is fading.

“They see where the whole vaccine thing was as much falsehood as anything else,” he said.

Part of his job as pediatrician, he tells his med students, “is to raise the parents. If we do a good job raising the parents, the kids do OK.”

Not that he leaves all the rearing to the parents. Early on, he advises youngsters “to stay away from skunks. If you run around with skunks, you’re gonna look like a skunk, you’re gonna act like a skunk and you’re gonna smell like a skunk. So choose your friends wisely.”

“I get to preach to the kids and that’s sort of fun, because the parents have already told them that and they want to gag and throw up. But when I tell them the same thing, it’s like, ‘That makes sense.’”

Edwards met wife Debbie when he was an orderly at Lauderdale Community Hospital in Ripley and she was a nurse’s aide. She eventually worked as a nurse at Methodist for several years before their three children came along. Today, she keeps a hand in nursing by working on occasion for a friend who has a mobile vaccine business.

All three of the Edwards children are in healthcare. One daughter is a labor and delivery nurse, and another daughter is a pediatrics recovery room nurse. Their son is in his third year of family medicine residency.

According to Edwards, none of the three was pushed into medical careers.

“I didn’t encourage or discourage because I wanted them to find out what they like, what their interest is and what their passion is without twisting an arm and saying ‘you need to do this’ or ‘you need to do that.’”

Dr. Bubba, at age 60, has no interest in retiring anytime soon.

“I’ll work as long as my partners will let me,” he said. “I’m having too much fun.”

RELATED LINK:

Pediatrics East, www.pedseast.com