The Wagner Doctors Know What It Means to Operate a Family Practice

SHINER, Tex. —  There’s Dr. Bob and Dr. Dennis, as they are known around town. And don’t forget their brother, Dr. Pat, who just retired.

Then there are those soon-to-be doctors, Ralph, Timothy, Thomas and Ted, Dennis Wagner’s grown sons. And Pat’s youngest son, Jason, a premed student.

“It’s kind of contagious,” says Dr. Bob Wagner about what is, in every sense, a family practice.

Since the early 1970s, Bob Wagner and his younger brothers, Dennis and Pat, have been the only physicians in this town, best known for its beer brewery.

Practicing medicine in a small town is not easy. But the Wagner clan loves it.

“People say, thank you,” Bob Wagner says. “You get a lot of gifts. You get a lot of food. You get turkeys and chickens and pies and cakes.

“To me, somebody that’s going to go out of their way to pay for a service and then ante up something. . . . That’s very gratifying.”

The 2,000 townspeople in Shiner have depended on the Wagners for everything from surgery to treating the flu to delivering babies.

The Wagners have delivered an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 babies, Bob says.

Pat, 54, retired last year for health reasons. Now Bob, 63, and Dennis, 59, keep the medical practice going, attending to 40 patients a day and taking turns treating the sick and doing emergency room shifts at a nearby community hospital.

Most patients visit the Wagners’ clinic for appointments but the doctors still do what most physicians gave up years ago. They make house calls.

“We stay very, very busy,” Bob says.

Their bustling office in downtown Shiner is housed in an old school building.

In the waiting room is a portrait of the man who started it all: Frank Wagner, the father of Bob, Pat and Dennis. He was--not surprisingly--a doctor.

Pat recalls local residents contacted his father at all times of the day and night for medical care, and his father always responded.

“He went to Mass and Communion every day. When he lost a patient he would almost lose his mind,” Pat recalls. “I guess we just had a real good man to identify with.”

Even though he was deeply devoted to Roman Catholicism, Frank Wagner was known to respect the beliefs of others.

“He would always prescribe wine for the Baptists and Methodists,” Bob says, with a smile. “They went right along with it--for medicinal purposes.”

Frank Wagner was so special in town that the local hospital was named for him.

His sons lament that the hospital was forced to close last year after struggling to survive. Its beds didn’t remain full, and it fell prey to today’s Medicare reimbursement system that pays a set amount for a diagnosis, no matter the cost of the service.

Now Bob and Dennis travel to Yoakum Community Hospital about 10 miles from Shiner to care for patients.

The brothers are trying to recruit a new doctor for their practice. Then Bob will consider retiring, he says. But trying to get a young physician to come to a small town isn’t easy.

“The ones who like to hunt and fish and drive a tractor on their days off will come on down,” Bob says.

But the three Wagners returned to their hometown, even after studying medicine at prestigious Texas medical schools. More Wagners are starting to follow in their footsteps.

Dennis says he never encouraged his four sons to go to medical school. In fact, he says: “I tried to discourage them from going into medicine, but to no avail.”

Now Ralph is completing his residency in Waco, and Timothy, Ted and Thomas are in medical school in Houston. Pat’s son, Jason, is studying premed at Notre Dame.

The Wagner family’s interest in health care doesn’t end there. Pat’s wife is a dietitian, a daughter is a nurse and another daughter is a respiratory therapist.

A sister of the Wagner brothers has eight children, and two of them are doctors.