Huron County View

Bad Axe radiologist retires after 33 years




Dr. David Carter, MD, is retiring after 33 years as a radiologist at McLaren Thumb Region.

Dr. David Carter, MD, is retiring after 33 years as a radiologist at McLaren Thumb Region.

COLFAX TOWNSHIP – Dr. David Carter, MD, who’s retiring after more than 30 years of radiology in Bad Axe, said he was nervous to do an interview about it.

“Every morning I would get up and I would just pray that I would not make a mistake,” Carter said when asked what’s the most important part of being a radiologist, “that I would see the abnormalities.”

He’s not nervous about being awkward, certainly.

“To me, to come in, and to read the image as – I’m going to get emotional here, I’m so sorry about this – to read it as if it was somebody in my family,” Carter said. “To look at it that well, to examine it, was my goal. To see every image as somebody out there who is somebody’s daughter or son and I would try to read it to the limit. Not let anything go – not to let time or people interfere with me or anything get in my way. To see every bit of that image and to work it the very best I can. Not only to see it, but to figure out what it is. You know, I could stop there, and say ‘well I think it’s this,’ not only that, but go on and say ‘what should be done next?’”

Rather his unexpectedness was apparent, though unassuming. He asked if this interview was for the internal newsletter at McLaren Thumb Region, his place of employment for each of his 33 years as a radiologist. He’s a man behind the scene – examining images, spotting abnormalities; rinse, repeat.

Carter, 63, grew up in Caro wanting to be a doctor. He always liked finding objects in photos that didn’t belong, not unlike finding differences in side-by-side images.

He would later attend the University of Michigan, and, by year three, he concentrated on radiology. He attended medical school at Wayne State University and then completed his residency in Detroit.

“I thought I would bet a year at least of residency on radiology” he said. “But, once I started, I really liked it.”

Carter has examined countless images, with the overwhelming majority being chest x-rays. He can’t think of the most bizarre x-ray he’s seen, but just weeks ago one of his patients had swallowed a drill bit that had broken while at the dentist. The piece appeared to be in the patient’s lung, but it was in an odd position, he said. Turns out the patient’s stomach had shifted up into the chest due to a hernia, throwing the visual off.

“That one tricked me,” he said.

For Carter, the head has been the most challenging body part to examine, he said. The inner ear, specifically, where there are scores of anatomical features packed together just beyond the eardrum.

Now, just days away from retirement, as Carter sits at his desk, he’s in the middle of a glaring representation of how technology in medicine has changed. Behind him is a machine – the machine he was trained on – that used film and developed to images which were examined on a lightbox. To his right, are side-by-side monitors, primed to allow him to find body abnormalities in a digitized form. As a result, if he swivels 360 degrees, the first 16 years of how he worked is in front of him. If he swivels to the right, the next 17 years.

“I think the biggest part of my job is just to go the limit on every image,” Carter said. “That’s my mission and it has been my mission all these years.”

Heading into retirement, Carter plans to spend time with his three children, Rachel, Zachary and Jace. He plans to see friends, work in the yard, play the piano and trombone and, naturally, practice photography.

“I really like photoshop,” he said, like it was a guilty pleasure. “I like processing photos as much as taking them.”

But, most notably, Carter plans on traveling with his wife, Ellen, to Europe or around the United States maybe. They have a grandson in Texas.

“It’s funny,” Carter said, “I joined at the hospital when my daughter was six months old, and I’m leaving when my grandson is four months old. It’s like one generation to the next.”

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