After 44 years of care for local children, Dr. David Chronley prepares for a new adventure: retirement.

An independent thinker with a sometimes irascible personality, he’s a blend of a country doctor with unvarnished views and the exacting nature of chemical and nuclear engineer he first became before going to medical school.

“At 74, my health is something to think about if something happened to me,” he said in an interview about packing away his stethoscope for good on Aug. 31 when Thundermist Health takes over his South County Pediatrics.

“My wife would be left to take care of an office and the computers are a huge burden these days and she couldn’t handle it. I needed to do something about that all,” he said, explaining a self-described workaholic’s reasons for retiring.

He’s been in practice in Narragansett since 1977 and has lived in town even longer — since he was a ninth grader. The doctor knows generations of local families and many have been his patients.  

Many parents as well as current and former patients in social media posts in North Kingstown, Narragansett and South Kingstown praised him for treating families — with helpful advice for the adults, too — as children grew up and later took their kids to him.

“Dr. Chronley has been my three boys’ pediatrician since they were born,” wrote Monica Eddy on a Narragansett social media site. “They are now 32, 30 and 24. My 15- and 8-year-old granddaughters now go to him. It isn’t going to be the same going there and not seeing him. He is such a sweet soul.”

He is, by all local accounts, one of the longest-serving pediatricians in the tri-town area.  

Earning a chemical and nuclear engineering degree at the University of Rhode Island, he soon felt medicine calling. It dovetailed with an engineer’s insatiable curiosity about how things work and being a straight shooter, he said.

“Yes, that has gotten me in trouble over the years around here in medicine,” said Chronley. “I have had plenty of things to say and I let people know it.”  

There seems to be truth in that statement based on The Independent contacting several doctors, including pediatricians, for comment. None would either comment or allow their names to be used.

“I do not think I could add anything” to a story about him, one leading doctor said bluntly.

Another long-time doctor, asking to remain unidentified, said, “Dave marches to a different drummer with a laid back sense of humor — mildly irascible  on occasion,” but the colleague also added, “He would be a great pediatric consultant.”

However, a former medical student in his office, Joanne Wilkinson, MD, MSc, medical director at Family Care Center, Care New England Primary & Specialty Care in Pawtucket, remembers him as someone attuned to others in the medical office which he ran.

“When I was a medical student, I was placed in Dr. Chronley’s office for my pediatrics rotation. One day there was a winter storm — rain, hail et cetera — and his reaction was that we should all jump in the car and go to the Coast Guard House for lunch to watch the wave,” she said. “This would never have occurred to me and I admired his ability to turn a rainstorm into a fun lunch hour. The other thing I remember about my time there is that occasionally he was ‘paid’ with shellfish, lobsters, etc. from patients, and I commented several times that I thought that was great and I hoped that happened for me someday,” she said.

Six years later when she began working in South County, “I came home to a basket of clams on my front step one day with no explanation. I think it was a welcome gift from him,” she added.

Chronley said that some of his challenges included reporting a doctor for “ghost” surgery because one doctor did the procedure while attributing it to another physician.

Another time years ago, a health care institution accused “me of stealing a $2.49 breakfast when these were typically given to doctors when we volunteered our time for meetings.”

He wrote a lengthy challenge and an administrative assistant was told to review “9,000 pages of memos, policies and other stuff to prove I was wrong. I was right and my letter was known as the ‘Ham and Eggs’ letter,” he said.

He also said that he once withdrew blood from a patient in a hospital lab and that irked officials, with one “calling me at dinner time and screaming and yelling at me.”

“I was very good at blood draws in medical school and was among the best in my class,” he said.

There also were some diagnoses that he challenged, he said, and his treatments provided a quicker recovery than those of the other physician.

Talking about doctors in general and students going into the profession, he said that some of those doctors doing the diagnosing — or not — might be part of the problem in needing so many medical tests today, he said.

“Being a doctor today is a whole different thing. You don’t have to be nearly as smart,” he offered because advanced medicines are making treatment easier and some doctors could be less attentive to an underlying symptom.

He blames high medical school costs, medical students’ preoccupation with the costs, and a lack of self-discipline that has produced a waning in their pursuit of the intellectual challenge.

“There are few working people, normal people, poor people’s kids going to medical school today. They are the hard workers,” he said.

“I had someone come in for a job interview to be a doctor and never gave a shot to a kid or started an IV,” he said, noting that person was an “unsuccessful” job applicant.

However, he’s leaving that training to the next generation of medical school professors and preceptors in offices, clinics and surgery centers.

The practice of criticism is frowned upon in the medical profession because “sharing conflicting information or negative judgments of other physicians to patients may be unprofessional. Poor teamwork within healthcare systems has been associated with patient mortality and lower staff well-being,” according to a 2013 research study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

He also had his brush with Rhode Island state health and federal Drug Enforcement Agency officials for alleged unprofessional conduct from 2009 to 2015 for excessive prescriptions for narcotics and other controlled substances.

They also alleged he did not keep the proper paperwork and logs about dispensing and prescribing these drugs. He denied those charges and maintained someone falsified prescriptions.

Nonetheless, he signed a consent order in 2018 in which he did not admit guilt, but acknowledged the board’s findings.

“I could have won in court with the health department, but I already had spent over $100,000 on defense attorneys. I am not a wealthy person and I felt if we could get a consent order and I could continue to practice (and) this would all just go away,” he said.

“Yes, I regret signing that now. When you spend all that personal money and there’s no end in sight...” he said as his voice trailed off, never completing the sentence.

Chronley readily admits he is an outlier.

On the topic of daycare ­— he says it “has no real proven studies that it’s safe for kids under 5 to go to it.”

Venturing into adult medicine and why he chose pediatrics, he was equally direct as he often can be.

“I didn’t like doing adult medicine at the time. My interaction with adults, it seemed, brought me to a lot of people who were dying. I wanted something that was happier, something I enjoyed more and that was also a challenge,” Chronley said.

A Favorite for Many

That choice, though, has made a difference in thousands of people’s lives over nearly five decades. Just a sampling of patient opinions tells the story.

Will Closterman posted on a South Kingstown social media site, “I had bacterial meningitis in 1988. He was with my parents every step of the way. Thank you Dr. Chronley. I’m alive because of you.”

On that same site, Kelly Davis said something similar. “I was a patient of his for 19 years. He kept me alive a few times when I almost died,” she wrote.

Many people told stories about him meeting them at their homes, a hospital or his office all hours of the day or night and regardless of holidays.

Kathy Daly from South Kingstown wrote, “I went to high school with David, and then he was our pediatrician … the one time my child had an emergency, he called the ambulance and arrived at my house before them … thank you, David!”

On a North Kingstown social media site, Valerie Rie recalled, “It was 1979 ... my newborn son had a high temp. I called Dr. Chronley ... he told me to meet him at South County Hospital… Do not stop to pack a bag, he said, just meet me at that hospital.’ My son was discharged after five days. I have never forgotten the urgency in Dr. Chronley’s voice.

“One year it was Thanksgiving day and both of my kids were so sick and I called him and he said I’ll meet you at the office in a hour, Valerie Spicher wrote in an email to The Independent.

“He left his family on Thanksgiving just to make sure my kids were OK. I feel like Dr. Chronley is more like family to us than a pediatrician. He has always gone above and beyond for his patients,” she said.

Patrica Murphy, Chronley’s employee for 20 years, wrote in an email about the Christmas office visit and then realized the patient had no transportation anywhere.

“It was cold and rainy,” she said. “He drove them to the pharmacy to pick up medication and then took them home. He was never too busy to see a patient, no matter what it did to his schedule.”

Kayla Leary remembered how he helped her overcome a fear of needles.

“I’m 35, my sister. Ashley Leary is 33,” she said. “Dr. Chronley was our doctor for many years when we were younger. I remember my sister being so scared of needles (shots), he would literally get under the table with her to calm her down. Don’t remember much but that was a very funny memory of me being a kid.”

Others recalled his interests that he shared with them and a peek at the man when he took the white lab coat off.

Lauren Daley said, “Dr. Chronley has been our family doctor for 21 years. Not only has he been the best doctor we could have asked for, but he did so much more. Sat with me as a new mum and didn’t muck about.”

“Best with stories about his own children, but I’m sure you have seen him picking up trash on the side of Point Judith Road as he went to and fro from work. Made a difference in so many lives. Will really miss his honesty and sideways humor,” she added.

And as a long-time area resident, he’s still remembered as a young boy by some residents older than he.

Marie Mancini wrote, “I’ve known David all of his life (since he was 6) I was his babysitter, along with his two sisters! A terrific person, kind, knowledgeable and funny!”

In another recollection from decades ago, Leslie Parsons Erickson told the story about Chronley as the teen bagging groceries at the former First National store in Wakefield in the 1960s.

“He was a favorite to customers, always cheerful and helpful. It was amazing to see him go on in life and become a well-respected pediatrician and retain his optimism and helpful attitude,” she said.

Children Today

Underneath that candor, is a sensitive man who is plugs into life, starting at the beginning, as so many patients attest.

“I really like going to see newborns,” he said, noting he worked in the neonatal subspecialty area while doing his residency. “It’s a really cool thing to see a baby being born. Most of the time it’s happy and everyone enjoys it.”

Later he attended many births while serving as a family pediatrician in an area decades ago with just country doctors serving all needs and a local hospital beginning to feel its growing pains.

During his near half-century in practice, he’s also seen many changes in children coming into his exam rooms.

“Children are under tremendous stress. There’s a lot more mental illness than when I started. It’s pretty striking and pretty sad. I hear about bullying and see anxiety and depression,” Chronley said, pausing for a moment to consider a more thorough answer. “It’s complicated about what’s at the basis of it. Our society is evolving as we speak. These are some of the effects. It takes many generations for an organism — and we humans are organisms — to adapt to the major changes we are seeing.”

He said that changes in family structures, divorce and blended families, including single parents facing many kinds of personal and financial problems, are also on his list of top changes.

“It’s trickier today (to diagnose illnesses) because kids aren’t as sick as they once were,” he said. “There are better vaccines and medicines, but you still have to be alert. While incidences of serious disease are lower, it’s not zero. You have to be on the lookout.”

It is a profession and way of life he is reluctant to leave as age forecloses on him and a career he has loved.

The office located at 360 Kingstown Road will be known as Thundermist South County Pediatrics at the end of this month. The other doctor in his office, Deborah Spaight, will also leave on that same day.

Tina Butler, CPNP, already a pediatric nurse practitioner at South County Pediatrics, will remain. Abram Collard, MD, and Laura Chaviano Chong, MD, will provide medical services in the practice.

Chronley, who lives on the Salt Pond in the Harbour Island section of Narragansett, said he won’t be going fishing when he hands over the keys to the door.

“I am terrified,” he said. “I am a confirmed workaholic. I see more patients than other doctors. I really don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m sure everything will be okay. I like the person I’m married to, but I don’t have any hobbies.”

Not yet at least, though he admits he might have to write himself a prescription for some.