MEDEX Northwest is saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Richard Bunch on November 10, 2020 at the Othello Community Hospital in Othello, WA at the age of 84. We remember Dr. Bunch, Othello’s devoted and beloved “family doc” for over 55 years, for his pivotal role in the launch and ultimate success of MEDEX and of the PA profession itself.
In the late 1960s, Dr. Bunch was one of many doctors in eastern Washington—indeed throughout the rural U.S. of the late 1960s—who were simply worn out and on the verge of packing their bags and leaving town. There was too much demand, there were too few providers to meet that demand, and the work was becoming too much to handle.
Then along came Dr. Richard Smith and his colleagues from across the mountains at the University of Washington in Seattle with an idea for addressing this significant problem: MEDEX. The MEDEX proposal was to choose candidates from among the best medically trained and experienced military medics and corpsmen returning from Vietnam and wartime service, to further their medical education and training, and to place them under the supervision of doctors in communities where they were so sorely needed.
Dr. Bunch (on far right) conferring in the hallway of the Medical Surgical Clinic in Othello, WA with clinic partner Dr. Pershall, PAs Paul Snyder and John Betz, and an unidentified clinic staff member. Photo likely taken in 1970.
The plan made sense to both Dr. Bunch and his partner Dr. Kenneth Pershall, who together had opened Othello’s Medical Surgical Clinic in 1962, and they signed on to the MEDEX experiment as preceptors and partnering physicians. In 1970, they took on two graduating members of MEDEX Class 1, PAs Paul Snyder and John Betz, who would spend the rest of their professional lives there in Othello as well, working alongside Dr. Bunch and many others, devoted to making a difference in the lives and the future of their community.
Dr. Bunch, alongside longtime PA colleagues and friends John Betz and Paul Snyder, together receiving the MEDEX Pioneers Award in 2015.
Over those years, Dr. Bunch’s partnership with MEDEX Northwest and his commitment to the PA profession itself would never waver. But history suggests that it was his initial act of support that was most essential, for without the endorsement of trusted doctors and proven community leaders like Drs. Bunch and Pershall, the MEDEX idea was never going to fly.
But fly it did. And now, more than 50 years later, we celebrate the life Dr. Richard Bunch and honor the many contributions he made to his community and to improving access to quality healthcare for all. Thank you, Dr. Bunch.
