"An Incomprehensible Work Ethic," Wilson Pruitt

"An Incomprehensible Work Ethic"

Wilson Pruitt

My father Ron Pruitt grew up in a family that was never close to wealthy, barley scrapping by with a meager income. Ron was raised by a military sculpted father, Walter Pruitt, who was known in his small city as a very strict and firm man, giving him the nick name “Buster.” Buster was a strong believer in the importance of having a good work ethic to be able to succeed, but Buster was gone for most of my father’s youth, serving in the U.S. Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. Since his father was gone so much during his youth, one might believe there would be a lack of guidance towards Ron’s work ethic and discipline. Instead, his father’s absence made Ron the man of the house for much of his life. Ron recognized this and worked academically and supportively to be the perfect son for his mother. Ron did so by being a straight-A student for his entire school career and helping his mother raise all of his younger siblings.

Because Ron’s family was at a modest economic standing, it was an expectation that if any of the children in the family desired a non-necessity item, they had to purchase it with there own money. Therefore, once his father retired from the army to become a tobacco farmer, my father was quick to begin working by his side. Although Ron had a sizable amount of money for his age, he never spent money faultlessly; instead, he saved every penny he made working with his father. As a result of these developed disciplines, Ron was able to purchase a Mustang as his first car when he was seventeen with no financial help from either of his parents.

Despite working tirelessly in his job as a tobacco farmer, he was still able to keep up his straight-A status in school, leading to Ron’s receiving a full ride to the University of North Carolina undergraduate school. Being offered a full tuition scholarship was very significant for Ron’s family because without the financial assistance, they would have been unable to afford college altogether. My father continued demonstrating his strong work ethic at UNC, graduating with a 3.9 Grade Point Average. He did this by sacrificing his social life, not going to parties or sporting events, even though it was during Michael Jordan’s time playing for UNC.  Because of my father’s continued work ethic through undergraduate school, he received a full ride for medical school at Duke University. This step in his life made him not only the first person in his family to ever go to medical school but also the first person in his whole town to ever go to medical school.

Ron then graduated from Duke and did his residency at University of Alabama. He was so successful in medical school and took his residency so seriously that was automatically offered a position in a hospital as a Gastroenterologist. After many years of successful public medical practice, he was able to open his own private practice, a huge accomplishment for any doctor. Slowly, Ron became more and more well known in the medical world by his high number of successful surgeries, causing many companies to recognize his brilliant skill. These companies started sending him new technology for Gastric Surgeons, making him a medical frontier in Gastrological technology. He was even one the only doctors invited to be trained by the inventor of the flexible indo scope Dr. Herskowitz. In this training, he became one of the first physicians to perfect the use of this tool that is now used by every Gastroenterologist in the world. He was then amongst the first to perfect the usage of multiple tools that have been developed for this endoscope.

As time went on, because of my father’s earlier perfection of these tools, he became one of the most desired and respected doctors in gastroenterology, treating multiple extremely powerful clients and celebrities whom would fly from all parts of the world to be operated on by him. Because of his success with these powerful people, he was able to become the head of multiple different private practices at two different hospitals. In one of these hospitals, he has even had a client donate a half of a floor to one of his private practices that is known as the Nathanson Center.

Ron’s tireless work ethic has caused him to have the highest number of treated patients in world for Barrett’s Esophagus disease. This lead to him receiving Fellowship recognitions, achievement awards, Diplomatic Certifications, and he has even been asked to speak at multiple medical events. He was recognized as a Fellow from multiple different medical societies: The America Gastroenterological Association, American College Physicians, and the American College of Gastroenterology. Ron has also been awarded multiple different achievements from various medical associations:  The Poster of Distinction by Digestive Disease Week, the Glaxo Fellow Award by the Gastroenterological Association, and multiple Awards in Biliary Lithotripsy. As well, he has been diplomatically certified in the subspecialty of Gastroenterological and in the specialty of internal medicine. He has also been asked to speak or lead multiple different highly respected medical events ranging from award ceremonies to different medical discussions for TV and magazines. This has caused him to travel multiple times across the U.S. to give speeches and reviews that have been broadcasted to all of America. As a result of all of these honors, Consumers Guide to Doctors rated Ron Pruitt in the top 1 percentile of Gastroenterologists.

Ron does not only practice gastroenterology, but he is also a leading researcher in the effort to cure Hepatitis C. This disease is still not 100 percent curable, but hopefully with my father’s persistence, it will be solved. It is very common for people with this disease to contract it through heroin use. This might cause some to ask why would a man with such a work ethic have a desire to help people with none at all, throwing there life away with drugs. Well, he does this not because he pities people with less work ethic than him, but instead, he acts in an effort to help those that no one else desires to help. When entered into this study, the survival rate was at 15 percent, but in the past decade Ron and his fellow researchers have raised the survival rate to 75 percent. I even worked for my father over my summers in his research practice. During this time, I was able to witness and observe how his research company works and see how grateful these people are of my father’s goal. On my breaks, I would even get to go to my fathers Gastrological operations to witness my fathers incomprehensible skill and work ethic towards his job.

Ron is not only a renowned doctor in the United States, but he is also a highly respected professor and role model for foreign doctors and medical students. He is a professor at Vanderbilt University Medical School and often does guest speeches at multiple other schools around the country. At the same time, Ron spends his spare time taking multiple foreign doctors under his wing. He does this to aid future doctors in Europe who are skeptical about the payment they would receive compared to the cost of education required to become qualified.

His most recent understudy is a Latvian doctor who leads medical associations that fight for higher wages. He takes time out of his job to travel across the world, introducing his understudy and many others to multiple technology companies. He does this in the hopes that they will supply these doctors with the tools they need to be a successful gastroenterologists. If he is able to do this successfully, he pays for them to come stay with him for periods of time so that they can learn to use these tools in real life situations. His doing this is remarkable because in the medical field, doctors usually do not share sponsors or secrets of practice so that they will have an edge that causes more people will come to them. Instead, Ron feels that all should be able to have the same opportunities that he has acquired. Because of this belief, Ron is has been asked to speak at many different medical conventions and award ceremonies across foreign countries as well.

My father’s work ethic does not end when he leaves the hospital, as he still successfully raises a family. For a some time Ron was a single parent, which is hard enough in itself, but because it is very common for the wife to get the majority of custody, it is very hard for the father to even acquire joint custody. However, because of my father’s work ethic and desire to be a good parent, he fought for his right to joint custody regardless of the financial or emotional difficulty. Now, Ron is remarried and has two more children. Having three more members in his family forces him to have to work even harder to be a successful family leader. My father successfully raised me during my rebellious teen-age years while at the same time raising a dramatic sassy eight-year-old daughter and a stubborn rambunctious seven-year-old son whom he adopted from Russia.

This accomplishment of adopting a Russian son is remarkable because the process is made difficult by the Russian government only allowing children with disabilities to be adopted by Americans. Therefore, the orphanages often make false medical reports of disabilities so that Americans are allowed to adopt the children. For my brother, Max, they created the false medical report that he was born with holes in his heart, and the orphanage was not allowed to tell my father if it was true or not. My father took the chance and returned to Siberia once again to get Max. He knew that it was very possible that Max would have this problem or that he could be emotionally disabled because of the amount of alcoholism in the people’s culture. Ron didn’t care. He knew he would be able to work hard enough to raise Max no matter what the outcome was. In the midst of all of these efforts, my father was still able to successfully provide emotionally, physically, and financially for his wife Ann.

My father’s work ethic is incomprehensible and unmatched. Even though he was born into a life with a father that was gone during his youth, he was still able to discipline himself to become the successful man he is today. From his tireless work ethic, he became the first doctor from his hometown. The remarkable thing was that this never stopped. He continued to work tirelessly, becoming one of the most renowned and respected gastroenterologists in the world. His success in medicine led him to becoming one of the most decorated and awarded doctors in his field of practice. Astonishingly enough, Ron does not allow any of his success to go to his head, even hiding his awards in a closet. He never allows himself a break because in his mind, it is not a big deal to succeed. Even after succeeding so highly in his job, Ron keeps on succeeding as a father and a husband, raising his children with an unconditional love and guidance while providing for an extremely independent wife.