Bayou Icon | The Art of Medicine

article of Georgiann Potts
photography by Kelly Moore Clark

From his earliest years, Dr. Keith Calhoun knew that he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. As it turned out, that was his destiny. Today he has a successful private primary care practice where he sees patients representing needs from birth through end-of-life care. He chose Family Practice as his focus because his own life experiences had taught him to value the family. It was an easy decision to treat the entire family unit rather than specializing in a single age-group or single medical specialty. Because of the literally thousands of people of all ages that he has treated with care and concern, Dr. Keith Calhoun is our January 2024 Bayou Icon.

Keith Calhoun was born on Monroe, Louisiana, on January 30, 1972. He was born into a close, loving family who provided him with the security and core values that would sustain him in spite of the inevitable challenges that life presents to all of us. Keith’s life from childhood through young adulthood was spent in West Monroe in the same home. That kind of stability is one of the keys to his outlook on life.

Keith’s father, Royce Calhoun, was born in Sikes, Louisiana. He attended Sikes High School until he graduated and then served in the United States Marine Corps for four years. Keith’s paternal grandparents, Make and Jewell Johnston Calhoun, lived in Sikes, Louisiana. “Papaw Calhoun” passed away when Keith was very young. “My only memory of him is that for some reason he could take out his teeth but I could not!” says Keith with a chuckle. “Mamaw Calhoun” was a strong woman who reared 15 children. “That house was small, but filled with love,” Keith remembers. “It was always busy with her in the kitchen.”

Keith’s mother, Rita Englerth, was born in Wilmot, Arkansas. Wilmot is a very small town near the Louisiana state line and is in Ashley County. Her parents, B.C. Englerth and Juanita Akridge Englerth, moved from Wilmot and settled in Delhi, Louisiana. B.C. bought the Quick-Pick there and had a good business selling typical convenience store items except for blocks of ice.

It was a blind date on Halloween in Delhi when Keith’s parents first met. Royce was working for an oil and gas company. “Dad jokes that Halloween is when the witches are out,” Keith says with a laugh. “My mom still doesn’t think that is funny.”

Royce and Rita married on June 11, 1966, and moved to West Monroe. Royce worked at the West Monroe paper mill until he retired in 1999. Rita worked as the receptionist for Breck Construction for over 20 years, and then worked for Monroe Communications for another 20 years before she, too, retired in 2013.

Royce and Rita had two children, Keith and his younger sister, Kim. Both were good students, and both would choose medicine for a career (M.D. for Keith and nursing for Kim).

Keith attended Woodlawn Elementary through 9th grade. For his final three years of high school, Keith was a West Monroe High School Rebel. In 1990, he graduated and was one of the class valedictorians. Kim, two years younger, graduated from West Ouachita High School where she, too, was one of the class valedictorians.

Finding a Career Path
Keith Calhoun was born understanding the importance of work, or so it seems. When he as a child, the summers would find him in the fields, hauling hay or picking corn. When he was 15, he got his first “real job” bagging groceries at Harvest Foods. At 18, he began working for Glenwood Medical Center doing transport services. When he was 21 and in his last year at college, Keith worked part-time at the West Monroe paper mill.

When he wasn’t working or in school, Keith had many purely “fun” experiences as a youth. During the winter, he spent extensive time at the hunting camp. While those were great times, his favorite memories center around holidays spent with his family. “Our holidays were huge. Thanksgiving and Easter were times for large family gatherings,” Keith remembers. “Sometimes there were more than a hundred people present!” He especially enjoyed the big Easter egg hunt for all of the children that took place every Easter. “These were some of my fondest memories of Sikes,” Keith adds. 

Influential Childhood Memories
Keith’s maternal grandmother, “Mamaw” Englerth, suffered from emphysema for as long as Keith can remember. After “Papaw” Englerth sold his store in Delhi, the couple moved next door to Keith’s parents because of her failing health. She would not live very long after that move. 

Keith’s grandfather Englerth did not like living alone. Realizing this and seeing that he could help, Keith moved in with his grandfather and lived with him next door to his parents for several years. In the winter of 1989, Keith’s grandfather became ill and passed away in 1990. He was Keith’s last surviving grandparent.

There is one memory from his childhood that stands out above all of the rest to Keith. He remembers seeing a doctor knocking at the family home’s front door and then coming in, bag in hand. Dr. Watson was there to care for Keith’s grandmother who was very sick. “Even though I may have been only 5 years old, I remember saying then that I wanted to be a doctor who helps those who are sick,” Keith says.

Through both seeing Dr. Watson and a number of personal experiences within his family while he was growing up, Keith learned the importance of family. “Even though families may have disagreements when times are hard, family always comes together,” Keith explains. ‘This is why I chose family practice for my career. I get to know entire family units through this practice, and that helps me to treat my patients in a more effective way.”

Starting a Practice and a Family
After graduating from West Monroe High School, Keith entered Northeast Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana Monroe – ULM) where he majored in pre-med. Biology was his very favorite course. After graduating, Keith was accepted to Louisiana State University Medical School in Shreveport (LSU-S). Once he had completed that program of study, Keith remained at LSU-S to do a 3-year residency.

In the summer of 1996, Keith and a classmate from medical school went on a mission trip to northern India for one month. Keith had just finished his second year of medical school. The group that they joined included ophthalmologists, surgeons, podiatrists, dentists, and primary care providers. The region that they served had no places for the team to stay so they spent their nights in tents. They saw people who lived day-to-day, just surviving in a cold, harsh climate. Few had ever had access to healthcare. “To see the appreciation in their eyes affects me even to this day,” Keith says. “I had the opportunity as few weeks ago to see a former classmate of mine who continues to work as a medical missionary. She had just returned to the United States for the first time in 18 years.”

During residency, Keith married Amy Grisham. Just as he was finishing up the third year of his residency, they discovered that they were going to have twins. Their two sons – Aaron and Jacob – were born in March 2001. The babies came early due to complications and spent their first month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Shreveport. “This was the hardest time in my life,” Keith says. “I was trying to finish residency, visit the twins 3-4 times a day in the NICU, build a house in Monroe, and – in the process – getting ready to open my own practice.”

The decision to open his first practice in Monroe was made easier by Dr. Kerry Anders, an established family practice doctor in Monroe. Anders had been Keith’s personal doctor since Keith was a teenager so Keith knew him well. “Kerry didn’t have to spend too much time convincing me to come back to Monroe to practice,” Keith says. “On July 30, 2001, I officially opened my private medical practice.”

Challenges to Meet and Overcome
Several years later, Keith’s son Aaron began spiking a very high temperature. The child spent 5 days in the hospital where the doctors had more questions than answers. Finally, Aaron was diagnosed with a rare condition called Kawasaki’s Disease. During the workup, doctors also discovered that Aaron had an issue concerning one of his heart valves that would require valve replacement surgery through open-heart surgery in upcoming years. This was devastating to both Keith and Amy.

When Aaron was seventeen, he underwent successful heart surgery and is doing well today. “Aaron is graduating from Louisiana Tech University in 2024 and plans to do optometry,” proud father Keith says. “Jacob is planning to go to medical school.”

Keith and Amy decided to separate in 2006, and Amy moved back to Shreveport with the twins. “During this time, I was dealing with depression caused by having to be apart from my sons and by having personal health issues myself,” Keith admits. “This would be a difficult challenge in my life.”

Keith was self-employed and had a medical practice to keep going. He says that there were days when he could hardly get out of his bed because of health issues. This was a difficult period, but he managed to do what had to be done for his patients even while fighting through his own problems.

An Unexpected Encounter
Dr. Herschel and Mary Beth Harter hosted a Christmas Eve party in December 2012 and Keith decided to attend although he hadn’t planned on going. There he met Darlene Grace, a successful title abstractor who had also decided at the last minute to attend. The next day Keith asked Mary Beth for Darlene’s phone number, and two years later – July 12, 2014 – they were married. “This was the moment that changed my life going forward,” Keith says. “She gives me love and support during life’s challenges.”

The couple discovered that they had a love for travel, albeit to different locales. She loves the beach, and Keith loves the mountains. They solved that by alternating locations every other time. Darlene is a very talented photographer, and Keith loves to watch her take photos of the places they travel.

Both of them would like to see the Northeast and Montana – both places neither has been. Also on their travel “bucket list” are two great countries – southern Italy and Scotland. Darlene would love to experience the Mediterranean beaches; Keith’s family is originally from Scotland, so it holds a special attraction for him.

Both also cherish quiet time. Darlene enjoys working in her flower beds and with plants. Keith loves to slip away to the hunting camp because there’s no cellphone service there. “Silence is often underrated in this busy world,” Keith observes.

COVID Becomes Personal 
On a Saturday in March 2020, Keith received an early cellphone call. He was told that he had the first confirmed case of COVID19 in Ouachita Parish. Keith immediately realized that he had not had a mask on when he treated this patient. There was so little known at the beginning of the pandemic that Keith was unsure what to do. Before long the “shelter in place” directive became the norm.

However, those like Keith in primary care still had to be on the front line. “I made the decision that I would see all patients as my oath was to take care of the ill,” he explains. “It was a challenge, and we lost some very dear patients to COVID. No one was left unaffected. Members of my staff lost family. Neighbors died. It was a very dark time in medicine, and some chose to walk away because it was just too much. For me it was a defining moment of how I would face the unknown. My family was there with a level of support that I cannot describe. COVID would beat us down, but it would not break us.”

25 Years of Service
There is no doubt that Keith found the perfect career when he chose medicine in general, and family practice specifically. Over his quarter of a century in practice, Keith has been privileged to meet thousands of people. Occasionally he will see someone he took care of when they were in high school, and now they are married and have children of their own. Keith finds this kind of encounter truly rewarding.

However, navigating all the rules and red tape that now seems to envelop medicine is a constant challenge. Keith spends time on credentialling boards and insurance boards, both of which help him keep as up-to-date as possible. Technological changes have been at times overwhelming. “I never thought that I would be using computers to see patients, but now we can hardly function without them,” he says. “This is good – when the internet is up and running. When it is down, however, we are almost lost.”

Keith points out that while the business and insurance aspects of being in private practice present the biggest challenges, no one teaches any of these things in medical school. “I have been fortunate to have local groups work with me to help us navigate the ever-changing field of medicine,” Keith says. 

Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician and teacher who is traditionally referred to as the “Father of Medicine” (5th century BC), described his vision for what those practicing medicine should always consider. He wrote, “The doctor’s duty is to cure sometimes, to relieve often, and to comfort always. Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.” 

After learning about Keith’s life path, it is clear that he understands – and practices – this Hippocrates standard. With a strong support group that includes family, patients, and colleagues, Keith Calhoun will continue to deliver excellent medical care in our region for years to come.