Dr. Wood, a founder of Hilton Head Hospital, dies at age 76

Dr. G. Thomas Wood III, a pioneer physician on Hilton Head Island who treated thousands of patients in 34 years of practice in the community, died at his Moss Creek home Thursday. He was 76.

Wood was on duty the hot August day in 1975 when Hilton Head Hospital opened as a private, 40-bed facility in a community of only 6,500 residents. He was the general surgeon on a staff of 11 full-time doctors recruited by the late Dr. Peter LaMotte, the hospital's founder.

"As soon as the (ribbon-cutting) ceremony was over," Wood recalled, "a man hurt his hand while installing cables in the hospital, and Dr. LaMotte told me to take him upstairs and fix it. I said, 'But we're not open yet,' and he said, 'We are now.' "

Those doctors took a career and financial gamble on the hospital that is now owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp. They routinely worked 18-hour days and took turns on emergency-room duty.

"Those were tough days financially for the whole country," Wood recalled. "But the hospital got cranked up slowly, year after year. The island wouldn't have developed without the hospital."

Wood became the hospital's chief of staff. When the hospital board suspended his medical privileges in 1986 for undisclosed reasons, Wood appealed unsuccessfully all the way to the state Supreme Court. More than 100 people took out a full-page ad in the newspaper expressing support for Wood, and he never stopped practicing medicine. He became medical director at Family Medical Center and later opened his own urgent and primary care practice, Plantation Medical in Moss Creek Village. He retired last year after more than 50 years in medicine. He preached prevention, publishing a book in 1984 called "How to Prevent Cancer."

Wood was a star athlete in his native North Carolina, where he played football at Duke University and earned his medical degree at the University of North Carolina. He served his surgical residency at New York's Roosevelt Hospital, where he met LaMotte.

"He's a very interesting man and a good doctor," LaMotte said in 2006.

Wood had a soft-spoken bedside manner and chatted with his patients about many subjects. He was known as a listener and for his wit and intellect. He thrived on his patients' personal feedback

"That's why I do it," he said at age 72. "I'm not trying to get rich. I'm already rich in many ways."

A memorial service will be at 6 p.m. Friday at the Children's Memorial Garden at Hilton Head Hospital, with Dr. Neil Love delivering a eulogy. Donations in Wood's name may be made to the Hilton Head Hospital Auxiliary Fund.