Dr. Knott Checks Out of Montauk
Dr. Anthony Knott of the Montauk office of the Meeting House Lane Medical Practice is saying goodbye to the hamlet after 10 years in practice there. Friday was his last day at the Montauk office.
“The people of Montauk have been really good to me,” said Dr. Knott, 55. He has enjoyed the intimate doctor-patient relationship that a small town affords. “I am going to miss everybody profoundly.” He is leaving not just Montauk, but the country, at least for the time being — he is scheduled to fly to England tomorrow.
That he ended up in Montauk was a bit of serendipity. It was about 2003, he recalled, when at a wedding he attended in Boulder he met Patty Lieber. “She said, ‘You know, there is a doctor who is going to need someone,’ ” referring to Dr. Gavino Mapula. Dr. Mapula, who died last year, served the residents of hamlet as their doctor for over two decades at the Montauk office.
The two men met in a booth at the Princess Diner in Southampton, and hit it off immediately, talking about the treatment of lacerations over lunch. “He was old-fashioned,” Dr. Knott said about his predecessor. Dr. Knott agreed to come on board. “When he said, ‘I have a busy practice,’ I didn’t appreciate just how busy.”
Dr. Knott did not mind the busy practice; it was the style of medicine he was looking for. No matter how crowded the waiting room was, he took the time needed to deal with each patient’s needs, and even made house calls when needed, almost unheard of today. He eventually bought Dr. Mapula’s practice, then known as the Montauk Medical Center. It was not a good business move, coming, as it did when the medical industry was shifting.
Practicing medicine has changed over the past 10 years, and that has been difficult for him, Dr. Knott said. He is frustrated by a medical industry transformed during his Montauk years by the insurance companies, forcing general practitioners like himself out of business. “There is a loss of control over aspects of that practice,” he said. “Medical care is driven by the insurance industry.”
“Reimbursement was a big issue. Businessman I ain’t, and you can quote me on that,” he said, laughing. “Financially, I was under water. I was grateful to Southampton Hospital for helping me.” Meeting House Lane is affiliated with Southampton Hospital.
As for President Obama’s health care initiative, he said, “He was trying to do something. My only criticism is, you have four or eight years, and you are trying to do all that. I don’t know if it is realistic.” He believes further reforms, particularly those targeting the insurance industry’s control, will be needed.
One aspect of the president’s original proposal to Congress that would have greatly improved current medical care at the local level, Dr. Knott believes, was lowering the qualifying age for Medicare from 65 to 55. That proposal was stripped out of the final bill. “Medicare works. It is not just about reimbursement. Medicare respects the human element. It is more realistic,” he said, than the current approach.
Many of his patients in Montauk are fishermen who work long hours under dangerous conditions. Quite a few of them over the years, he said, go uninsured, and put off dealing with medical issues until they qualify for Medicare. That is a recipe for disaster, Dr. Knott said.
Patients speak of Dr. Knott in glowing terms, praising him for his medical attention as well as his bedside manner. “Dr. Knott is grounded. He is very kind and sensitive. He took his time,” said Donna Hadjipopov, whose husband, George, died of lung cancer last January. “Dr. Knott doesn’t compartmentalize the patient.” Ms. Hadjipopov helped organize a farewell party for Dr. Knott on Friday at the Inlet Seafood restaurant in Montauk.
While he did not tire of his patients, he is discouraged by the medical bureaucracy and is eager to turn his attentions now from medical pursuits to artistic ones. He has written three books already, two novels and one work of non-fiction and is looking forward to sitting down with his English friend and editing them. “You have to follow your own inner voice,” he said.
His attraction to the arts is not out of whimsy. He is the only child of a renowned theater couple. His English-born father, Frederick Knott, was the playwright of stage crime thrillers like “Dial M for Murder,” which was later turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, and “Wait Until Dark.” His mother, Ann Hillary, is a veteran of Broadway, Off Broadway, and television, from the era when much of what America watched on its TVs was shot in New York.
Growing up with theatrical parents may sound glamorous, but it meant that they were busy working and playing at night. He found himself attracted instead to the world of medicine. His role model was Dr. Bill Francis, an uncle who was a general practitioner in the small town of Cookville, Tenn.
“The guy was famous,” Dr. Knott said. “He delivered thousands of babies. He took out gall bladders. He was on call 24 hours a day.”
When he was 12, Dr. Knott’s family moved from Manhattan’s West Side to New Jersey. He graduated from high school in Lawrence Township, then attended Duke University, Brooklyn Polytechnic, and Hunter College. He went to medical school at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn, and did his residency at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Now, his two sons are in college and he is ready to begin his own next chapter.