LAYTON — When Dr. A.Z. Tanner opened his medical clinic in Layton in 1905, he mostly went to his patients, traveling by horse and buggy. So in his own early years of practice did his son, Dr. Noall Tanner.
It would be Noall, decades later, who pushed for a hospital in rapidly growing Davis County. It is perhaps appropriate that Tanner Clinic now sits right across the street from Davis Medical Center.
The community was not all that grew. Tanner Clinic, which is now 100 years old, grew as well. Wednesday, it celebrated that growth with an open house to show off its new 60,000-square-foot addition at 2121 N. 1700 West. It includes an imaging center with both MRI and CT services, and a new computerized medical record system. More unusual, the facility houses a sleep lab, the first of its kind in the county.
It was a one-man show when A.Z. Tanner started. When Carma King, the nursing supervisor at Tanner, went to work there for the first time 45 years ago, there were four doctors. Now there are about 60 physicians involved in one of the three Tanner locations (the other facilities are in Kaysville and Syracuse). King has witnessed a lot of change, she said during the anniversary program. Coronary artery bypass was once done only at great risk. Now it's pretty routine. That's been the story with a lot of medical advances.
Back then, general medicine was the rule. Today, the clinic boasts general family doctors and a wide range of specialists, too. In all, the physicians list 37 medical disciplines, from weight management to sleep disorders, endoscopic sinus surgery, bone density screening, stress testing and more, treating both children and adults.
Some of the patients haven't changed, though. Wednesday, Tanner staff introduced Lynn and Marjorie Criddle, who were both delivered by A.Z. Tanner and who still receive their care nearly 90 years later from Tanner Clinic. Just as his father delivered them, Noall Tanner delivered their first daughter, Carolyn. And he helped them adopt a second daughter. In written notes provided to the media, Lynn Criddle noted that when he was a child Dr. Tanner would go to a house where a group of people had gathered and simply "go down the line and remove tonsil after tonsil."
Dr. Bruce Burtenshaw, who joined the practice in 1978 and is now also board chairman, took the dozens gathered for the reception on a nostalgic trip into the past, telling humorous tales about doctors who are no longer with the clinic, some dead, some simply retired. As recently as 15 years ago, he said, it was the only large, physician-owned clinic of its type in Utah. Even today, he said, it remains "fiercely independent."
Tanner Clinic facilities have treated between 350,000 and 400,000 individual patients. Currently, it lists 180,000 patients.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com