What would have been a devastating career setback for many people has turned into a mutually beneficial opportunity for Robert Pringle, M.D., and Glens Falls Hospital.

Sixteen months after Dr. Pringle was forced to give up a 20-year local practice as a surgeon due to an ever-worsening latex allergy, he was hired in July as the Hospital’s medical director.

“You go through all the stages of mourning to one degree or another,” Dr. Pringle says of giving up his two-decade surgical career. “Everybody goes through it to different degrees. I just kept going. I funneled my energy in another direction.

“The Hospital played a very important role in the transition, too,” he adds. “They put their trust in me.”

As medical director, Dr. Pringle works closely with the Hospital’s medical and administrative staffs to ensure that the many systems in place to provide quality care at the Hospital are working well.

“Dr. Pringle’s experience in the local community and the respect he’s earned among his fellow physicians made him an ideal choice for medical director,” says David G. Kruczlnicki, the Hospital’s president and chief executive officer. “He has a tremendous amount to offer our medical and administrative staffs, and our patients.”

Dr. Pringle keeps his finger on the pulse of health care consumers by working part-time at the Hospital’s Center for Occupational Health, helping people injured on the job return to work faster and healthier. At the same time, he’s pursuing his master’s degree in occupational health from McGill University in Montreal. “I have enjoyed taking people through serious situations,” he says. “In occupational health, I’m still working with patients, but I don’t wear latex gloves.”

Latex gloves, long a symbol of disease prevention, have now become a bane to the medical community. As many as 20% of healthcare workers today are said to suffer from latex allergies to one degree or another.

Glens Falls Hospital has been a leader among hospitals nationwide in reducing its use of latex gloves and other latex materials over the past year, and has established an airborne latex monitoring program throughout the Hospital. It was the late fall of 1997 when Dr. Pringle first began experiencing severe asthma attacks. At first, he procrastinated in seeking care (“A doctor is his own worst patient,” he says with a smile), but as the symptoms worsened, he underwent testing. The result was a positive diagnosis for latex allergies and a recommendation to discontinue the practice of surgery. Four months later, Dr. Pringle laid down his scalpel and embarked on the latest adventure of his diverse working career.

Earlier chapters saw him working alongside his father in the construction business in his native Philadelphia and serving six years as an electronic technician aboard a U.S. Navy submarine. Upon his discharge from the Navy, Dr. Pringle and his wife Angela, a registered nurse who grew up in Saratoga Springs, headed off to Penn State University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in science, with a minor in philosophy. He went on to earn his doctor of medicine degree from Temple University, and eventually built a successful surgical practice, first in Saratoga, and then as a partner in Adirondack Surgical Associates in Saratoga and Glens Falls.

Sitting in his Hospital office on a recent morning, he appears remarkably content for someone who has given up a career to which he devoted nearly half his life.

“Do I miss surgery? Oh, sure, but I kind of miss being in the submarine, too,” he says, nodding at a scale model fleet ballistic missile sub sitting on a shelf behind his desk, a gift from a grateful patient. “But that was then...things change. You have to embrace change. It’s going to come anyway.”

As medical director, Dr. Pringle says, “I’m learning a lot, and I enjoy learning. I hate being bored. This is different, but it’s not boring. We’re working to make Glens Falls Hospital the best it’s ever been.”