By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 6, 2021 | If you were living in the Duluth area in the last 60 years, chances are you knew of the medical practices of Miles Mason. You see, there have been two doctors named Miles Mason practicing medicine out of Duluth. Miles Mason Jr. tended to all sorts of medical needs in the Duluth area until 1994.
Now his son, Miles Mason III, has retired as of June 30 from his surgical practice in Duluth. As long as he can remember, Dr. Mason III has wanted to follow his father as a medical doctor.
Miles III says: “My father was a general practitioner, meaning he did everything, surgery, OB, pediatrics. He worked with George Tootle, another doctor here who did surgery. And it was my father who suggested I should think of doing surgery. And to me that made sense, for there is no better feeling than to be able to fix what you find in a person.”
Dr. Miles Mason Jr.
Now 73, the newly-retired doctor has no immediate plans. “Maybe I’ll be teaching at some place. I’ll not lay down and take it easy, but I’ll get back into something.”
Dr. Mason finished school in Duluth High, then went to Emory at Oxford for his first two college years. Then he graduated from Emory University in 1968, and from the Medical College of Georgia in 1972. For five years he was in surgical residency at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas.
For two years, he was in the Navy, initially on the carrier, USS Independence, as a surgeon, and spent another year at the Portsmouth, Va. Naval Hospital. His rank when he left medical service was lieutenant commander.
He returned in 1979 to practice in Duluth at Joan Glancy Hospital, which was then the largest medical facility in Gwinnett County. He remembers: “Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville wasn’t built until 1984, when all of a sudden we had more up-to-date medical facilities in the county.”
Dr. Miles Mason III
Over the years, Dr. Mason III has treated numerous patients, in the thousands. “I saw a guy the other day that I treated when first in practice.” Since 1996 he has practiced out of an office on McClure Bridge Road.
It was in 1972, after medical college, in Augusta that Dr. Mason III married Sandy Ulmer, originally from Walterboro, S.C., who was a teacher at the time. She later became a nurse. They have three children, Stephanie, Lisa and Miles IV. Stephanie is a freelance writer, while Lisa is a veterinarian in DeLand, Fla.; and Miles IV is in information technology in Chattanooga. The Masons have two grandchildren and another on the way.
Dr. Miles Jr.’s marriage brought forth five children, with Miles III being the oldest. Others include Claude Mason, a lawyer of Duluth; James Mason, a pro golfer of Sky Valley; Beth Miles Mozley of Duluth, who worked with Miles III as a nurse; and Bill Miles, a pharmacist, formerly of Statham, but now back in Duluth.
Beth remembers: “Being the only girl in the family, I was the privileged one of the group, for the boys when they needed something, would come to me.” She also remembers about Miles III: “He was always the funniest one, who excelled in his studies, played sports and was always the proper one. “
Recently at a gathering celebrating Miles III years in medicine, friends of the Gwinnett Medical Center Foundation raised just over $100,000 for an endowment for Northside Duluth honoring him.
Thank you, Miles Mason III, for your many contributions and your healing hands helping so many people in the wider Gwinnett area.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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