One of Henry County’s longest-running medical practices, if not the longest, is going strong in its seventh decade – and recent plans could take it many more years into the future.

  It’s been known as Anglyn Family Medical Center for more than 30 years, since Dr. Derrell Anglyn assumed sole ownership after partnering with Dr. Bob Foster for about a year and a half. Foster moved to his McDonough location in 1957 and tended to Henry County patients until he retired at the end of 1985. He passed away in 1999.

  Anglyn, who grew up in Hampton where his mother still lives, began working with Foster in the summer of 1984, immediately after he finished his residency in Alabama. His wife did not join him immediately because she was about to give birth to their son, so they joined him when Adam Anglyn was two years old.

  Fast-forward to 2019. Dr. Adam Anglyn has been practicing with his father for about a year, and both are very pleased at the current and future arrangement.

  “A lot of times growing up I thought I wanted to be a doctor,” said Adam, who graduated from Henry County High School and later earned a degree in physics from Georgia Tech before going to medical school. “I thought for a while about being a physicist, but eventually I decided I wanted to practice medicine.”

  Once he completed his internal medicine residency at a North Carolina hospital, there was no question where he wanted to continue his career. “I always knew I wanted to practice in McDonough, serving the people I grew up with.”

  That has been an interesting experience, seeing many people he has known his entire life and seen walk through the doors of his father’s office for years. He commented that he has even met people who were patients of Foster.

  “Some people have been coming here since 1957,” said Derrell Anglyn, who has remodeled and added on to his office but has remained in the same location as when he started.

  He was the only doctor in the practice for a number of years after Foster’s retirement, only adding a nurse practitioner in the late 1990s. Around that same time he merged for a few years with Eagle’s Landing Family Practice while keeping his office location, then went back on his own and remained that way. For a short time he had a physician’s assistant and nurse practitioner on hand and oversaw the practice. He has had a few doctors in and out temporarily, but as he put it, “Adam is the first shot I’ve had at having someone long-term.”

  He has no immediate plans for retirement, but he has recused his workload somewhat by doing a concierge practice the past seven years. So he typically sees 10 or 11 patients per day instead of 25 or more, and he is able to spend more time with each one.

  The elder Anglyn has seen explosive Henry County growth the past quarter-century along with dramatic changes in healthcare, and he hopes his office can continue to navigate through the medical landscape for a long time.

  In fact, when he introduces Adam to patients, he often refers to him as “long-term planning.” That’s because he wants to keep Anglyn Family Practice in the community “for years to come, long beyond when I can still practice.”