Aramco Expats

Former Aramcon Dr. Larry Fout Retiring

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Author: The Crecent-News (Darlene Prince)
Released 19 December 2007

DEFIANCE, OHIO, USA -- DECEMBER 16, 2007 -- A distinguished career that has taken Defiance Clinic's Dr. Larry Fout from the small town of Holgate to a life of worldwide adventure and travel will slow down somewhat when he retires on Tuesday.

Before he came to Defiance Clinic, Fout, 77, served around the world with the U.S. Navy for 23 years before retiring from military service. Then, with his taste for adventure still unsatisfied, he decided to work for an international oil company in Saudi Arabia.

Fout was born in Piqua. "My parents moved to Findlay and then to Holgate. So I consider Holgate to be my hometown."

He graduated from Holgate High School in 1958, worked for several years as a baker in Holgate and then, in 1951, went to Ohio Northern University, Ada, where he earned his bachelor of science degree. From there he went to Ohio State University, earning his doctorate of medicine in 1959. He interned at Grant Hospital in Columbus and then joined the Navy.

"I joined the Navy in 1960 and went to Pensacola, Fla., to become a flight surgeon," he said, and trained at the Naval Aerospace Medical Center in Pensacola.

He next went to the Naval Air Station on Guam, then back to the states for duty at the Naval Air Training and Naval Air Reserve stations in Texas and Kansas, and eventually back to Pensacola.

During this stage of his career, he also attended Tulane University for a three-year residency in aerospace medicine and earned board certification in that specialty in 1971.

He began his world travel when he was assigned to the USS Ranger for two years. He spent some time aboard ship on Yankee Station off the coast of Vietnam and also some time in-country. And he had a four-year tour of duty with the First Marine Brigade in Hawaii.

"In 1977, I was asked to make a career choice -- either practice medicine full-time or go into health care administration. I wrote a letter and personally visited my admiral to tell him that I wanted full-time medical practice," Fout recalled. "A few weeks later, I got a letter assigning me to administration.

"I figured administration must be what God wanted me to do," he said. "I went to the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois as executive officer and stayed in administration for the rest of my Navy career, although I always maintained a limited medical practice in addition to my administrative duties."

After serving at Great Lakes, Fout was assigned as commanding officer of the Naval Hospital, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later as commanding officer of the Naval Regional Medical Center in Orlando, Fla.

Of his time at Guantanamo Bay, Fout said, "My biggest problem probably was the Haitian refugees landing in boats and seeking asylum. Often they had malaria and other illnesses, so we took care of them. More often than not, they were then taken back to Haiti. We also had some Cubans who would sneak onto the base by swimming," he said. "They were usually medically cleared and then sent to the states by the State Department. The base at Guantanamo is surrounded by 50,000 land mines. You could hear one go off every once in a while when a deer stepped on it."

Fout retired from the Navy in 1983 and was arranging to go into private practice in Orlando, when he received a call from a recruiting agency for a position with an international oil company.

"They asked me if I was interested in working at a hospital for the Arabian American Oil Co. in Saudi Arabia. It was the largest oil company in the world.

"My wife, Jane, loves to travel, so I accepted the position as general manager of medical support services for the company," he said. He worked for the company for seven years in Saudi Arabia.

"We lived in one of the four compounds where the expats (expatriates) lived," he explained. "There were between 15,000-20,000 Americans, Brits and Canadians living there. We were treated very well and the pay was excellent. The company at that time employed about 60,000 people.

"The compounds were like small cities. Each one had its own movies, restaurants, swimming pools and other facilities.

"Men and women could drive on base and men could drive off base, but the women could not," he said. "Women were not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.

"With me being an executive of the company, Jane had her own garden boys, houseboys and yard boys," he said. "It was kind of a life of leisure in many respects. We had many close friends on the base, including Dr. John Wyllie, who was a good friend and later came to work at Defiance Clinic.

"Jane and I did quite a bit of sightseeing, but you had to be careful where you took pictures. In some places, pictures were not allowed to be taken and they would take your camera if they saw you."

Driving his Jeep in Saudi Arabia presented a problem for Fout.

"When I came to Saudi Arabia, I had a Jeep shipped over to drive," he said. But when the Jeep arrived in the country, it was confiscated by the government. He said he did not realize it was illegal to ship a Jeep into Saudi Arabia and was threatened with jail and a large fine.

"I knew I would not have to go to jail, but I still had to go to court every two weeks on Thursday mornings for about an hour while they decided what to do. Once my adviser told me I was making progress because I was not going to jail. He said the next move was to free the Jeep."

After about a year, the court returned his Jeep to Fout and he shipped it back to the U.S. where, he said, his daughter and son-in-law broke it.

Another glitch in driving in their country was the Saudis' method of dealing with vehicle accidents.

"Saudi Arabian philosophy in car accidents was that both parties were a little guilty and both should go to jail, no matter who was at fault," he said. "The idea was that even if you did not cause the accident, there would not have been an accident if you had not been there.

"Westerners knew that if they were in an accident to pretend that they were injured and then they were sent to the hospital. Otherwise, we might have been taken to jail and sometimes, it was somewhat difficult to get out of the local jail."

Another difference between the two cultures is the use of alcohol, which is forbidden in Saudi Arabia.

"We were not supposed to have alcohol, but most Western homes did," he said. "They had a little book on how to make alcohol called Blue Flame, which was handed out years ago. Many homes had their own still, although we didn't because of my position at the hospital."

The Fouts returned to the U.S. just before the Desert Storm War in 1990.

"The Iraqis aimed a few Scud missiles into various parts of Saudi Arabia, and some did land very near our compound. My wife has some jewelry made from pieces of one. Because of the war and the fact that I had to retire from the firm when I was 60 anyway, I decided to leave the country rather than stay there through the war," Fout said.

When Fout and his wife came back to northwest Ohio to visit family, they decided to buy a house in the country near Defiance.

"I love living in the country and the house was on the river, so we decided to buy it," he said. "Family practice physicians have always been somewhat in demand, and I wound up coming to Defiance Clinic because of our friends there -- including Dr. Allen Gaspar, who had been my mother's physician for years.

"It has been a very interesting 17 years and I have enjoyed them greatly and in many respects will miss my clinic practice."

While he will be retiring, Fout will not be completely giving up the practice of medicine.

He plans on retiring to property they have owned for 20 years in Hilton Head, S.C., where there is a Volunteer in Medicine (VIM) program created to serve the uninsured population in Hilton Head.

In 1992, the founder of VIM, Dr. Jack McConnell, lived at Hilton Head and discovered, after some inquiries, that about 30 percent of his fellow islanders had no access to health care except the emergency room of a hospital. Other primary health care was accessible by the islanders at a facility on the mainland about 30 miles away.

Realizing that he could ask for volunteer help from the large number of retired physicians on the island, McConnell got some assistance from the state with medical licensing procedures and from the Joint Underwriters Association on malpractice insurance.

With this assistance, a number of donations and grants and volunteer services provided by more than 400 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others, a free clinic was opened to serve the poorer island residents.

Fout and his wife also plan on visiting their family members in Wisconsin, and will come back to this area, too. The couple has one daughter, Jill, and two grandchildren, Molly and Kelly.

But he seems to be intrigued by the idea of volunteering at the Hilton Head clinic. He has visited the clinic and is impressed with its operation.

"I could work as much as I want, one day a week or more," he said. While it may not be as exciting as working half way around the world in the Middle East, it seems to be adventurous enough for the doctor.

"After all," he added, "every patient is an adventure."

Published by permission of Darlene Prince, The Crescent-News