A Father’s Day Story: Father and son surgeons operate side-by-side

By Joyce Beverly

It was the summer of 2011. 

Dr. Eric Wellons was in a predicament. The senior partner at his medical practice had retired. An associate working under him had left. He was short-handed with a heavy caseload.

“I was by myself, and I couldn’t do it,” Eric says.

A board-certified vascular surgeon, Eric was managing a growing practice at Atlanta Vascular Specialists in Fayette and Coweta counties. A year before, he had started a center for dialysis patients. In addition to the routine and life-saving surgeries he provided daily, he needed to staff the dialysis center five days a week. With multiple offices to oversee and a growing number of patients relying on him, Eric did what a lot of us have done at one time or another. He picked up the phone and asked his father for help.

The thing is, though, most of us don’t have a father who is a retired professor of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery.

“Most of the stuff I was doing was all within the scope of what he had been doing for years,” Eric says, “so I asked him to come for a year just to help me figure it out. He could see patients in the office and allow me more flexibility.”

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Atlanta Vascular Specialists protects, takes care of patients during COVID-19 crisis

If you experience discomfort and swelling from varicose veins or have achy, heavy legs or swelling or discoloration of the ankle, particularly at the end of the day, there’s no need to postpone treatment until after the pandemic. 

Atlanta Vascular Specialists, caring for patients in the Atlanta area for more than 40 years, continues to treat patients with artery and vein-related conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic with the highest degree of safety. 

The board-certified vascular surgeons at Atlanta Vascular Specialists routinely perform procedures to treat arterial conditions such as blocked arteries, aneurysms, and peripheral arterial disease, as well as vein-related conditions such as venous insufficiency and varicose veins. 

Dr. Eric Wellons, Dr. James Combs, and Dr. John Dooley, the trio of surgeons who perform these procedures, came together at the very beginning of the pandemic to be as proactive as possible about protecting patients and staff.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, we rotated teams,” Dr. John Dooley explains. “So we had half of our office stay out. We continued as normal, and then if someone were to be sick or not feel well, we would sub someone in so that they wouldn’t feel obligated to come in, and we could have them rest for two weeks at home to get tested and ensure that they weren’t sick.”

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Be Ready For Beach Season

By Joyce Beverly 

You may be huddled up with a hot drink by the fire when you read this, but summer is coming. Your favorite warm-weather activities are weeks away and those sweaters and leggings we’re hiding extra holiday pounds and all sorts of things under will be coming off soon.

Unsightly spider or varicose veins don’t have to make winter your favorite time of year. You can shed those extra layers of clothing with confidence this year with quick and easy treatments by a premiere team of vascular surgeons at Atlanta Vascular Specialists, which includes Dr. John Dooley.

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Board Certified Surgeons at Atlanta Vascular Specialists Treat Varicose Veins, Spider Veins, and Leg Pain and Swelling 

By Joyce Beverly

If you suffer from varicose veins, spider veins, leg pain or swelling, there’s no need to put off getting help. Atlanta Vascular Specialists, a highly trained, experienced team of vascular surgeons, is qualified and ready to treat your vein-related conditions within minutes of your Fayette home.

Most treatments are minimally invasive and are performed in-office with little downtime. Moreover, you can call for a free vein screening to find out what the best course of treatment is for your condition.

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“We have an opportunity in vascular surgery to provide results in many ways. It’s a field where we often see immediate results.”

By Joyce Beverly 

You may be surprised to know that a referral to a vascular surgeon does not automatically mean you’ll be adding “surgery” to an upcoming date on your calendar. Dr. Jim Combs, board-certified vascular surgeon at Atlanta Vascular Specialists, contradicts this expectation often.

“Just because you’re referred to see a vascular surgeon does not mean you need an operation,” Dr. Combs says. “So much of what we do in vascular surgery in promoting vascular health is nonoperative, conservative therapies.”

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Hope for the Future

By Joyce Beverly

On an ordinary Tuesday in September, Dr. John Dooley placed a stent in the leg of a patient to improve blood flow to his toes and avoid amputation. He provided dialysis access to a patient with kidney failure. By the end of the day, he had cared for many other patients similarly, as he does every day at Atlanta Vascular Specialists, with one goal in mind: to help people continue their lives as normally as possible, despite having vascular disease. 

“People we take care of often have other illnesses and are sick in other ways,” Dr. Dooley says. “Whether it’s leg pain from varicose veins that are debilitating and hard to deal with on a daily basis or dealing with arterial wounds to prevent amputation, a lot of patients come to us in dire straits and we are able to offer them hope for the future.”

A board-certified vascular surgeon, Dr. Dooley uses the latest advances in technology to treat vascular conditions with minimally invasive procedures that are generally easier on the patient and require less downtime. For instance, he recently began using a new catheter device, approved for use less than a year ago, which removes blood clots with less procedural risk, no hospital stay, and without blood clot medications that can have harsh side effects. Dr. Dooley and his partners, Dr. Eric Wellons and Dr. Jim Combs, are all committed to keeping up with the newest approaches in their field.

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‘The Christmas People’

Mike and Gwen Gaddy, with grandson Aiden, prepare for this year’s light display.

By Joyce Beverly

It’s the most wonderful – and busiest – time of the year at the home of Mike and Gwen Gaddy on Sandy Creek Road.

The magic unfolds discretely as the couple spends afternoons erecting wireframes and stringing lights on the property where they’ve lived for 42 years.

Mike drives hundreds of rebar stakes into the ground to secure countless scenes, oversized figures, and ornaments. He hauls giant nutcrackers, Christmas trees, Santas, reindeer, a Ferris wheel, and two pickup truck loads of extension cords out of buildings and tractor-trailers where they’ve been carefully stored for months.

Gwen puts the finishing touches on good-as-new decorations in the workshop where they refurbish and rehab treasures year-round. She gives a mother’s once-over spit shine to each festive item before it takes the stage.

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How the Gaddys Keep Up The Pace

By Joyce Beverly

Mike and Gwen do the work required to host the Christmas Extravaganza almost entirely by themselves. Their children are nearby and help when possible, but they are busy with full-time jobs and their own kids’ activities. It’s a labor of love — with emphasis on the word labor — because the physical demands are real.

Mike owns a pallet business that provides some freedom and, perhaps more importantly, a forklift. At 71, he says things are a lot heavier than when he was 40.

Gwen keeps fit with regular exercise routines. Currently, she’s enrolled in boot camp. She rises at 3 or 4 in the morning, depending on what time she has to report to work at Kohl’s, where she has worked for 16 years. She decorates all the holiday trees at Kohl’s as well as eight full-size trees at their home, where she hosts a large gathering of close friends for a holiday open house each year.

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