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Partners
in practice
By Lisa Watts
Debra Fast and Kathy Fearon struck up a conversation on their first
day of classes in the College of Osteopathic Medicine — and
they’ve barely stopped talking since.
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Joel
Troyer
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| Doctors
(left) Kathy Fearon and Debra Fast |
“We’re
very similar,” Fast says.
“We’re both positive people,” Fearon adds, finishing
her friend’s thought. “We have the same goals, we’re
thorough, and we hate when things fall through the cracks.”
Nine years after their first meeting — and six after both earned
doctor of osteopathy degrees in 1995 — the two doctors operate
an internal medicine practice in Wooster, Ohio, with a third partner.
Their friendship has carried them through exams, residencies, weddings
and vacations. Running a business together seemed only natural.
“It’s kind of like when you’re a little girl and
you say to your best friend, ‘One day we’ll live in a
big mansion. I’ll live in one wing, you’ll live in the
other, and our kids can play together,’” Fearon says.
“One day during our residency we were talking, ‘Wouldn’t
it be neat if we could find a place where we could open our own
practice together and see patients the way we want to?’”
So began Comprehensive Internal Medicine Inc., which the women opened
in October 1999 with Dr. Dana Bonezzi. The doctors say caring for
patients with multiple ailments is their specialty.
While the docs work 10- to 12-hour days and divvy up nights and
weekends on call, they make time for their friendship, too. Since
they both live in Wooster, it’s easy for Fearon and her husband,
Harold, and Fast and her husband, Tom, and their 1-year-old daughter
to spend time together.
“At work, it’s all business, all doctor talk,” Fearon
says. “On the weekends and vacations, we stop talking shop
and the friendship stuff comes out. Our lives are so intertwined.”
Lisa Watts is editor of the College of Wooster’s Wooster
Magazine.
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