- Date Of Birth: December 12, 1929
- Date Of Death: March 29, 2011
- State: Georgia
William Carter Waters III, MD, MACP, well-known Atlanta physician, and Newnan, GA resident, died Tuesday, March 29, 2011, of complications from prostate cancer. He was 81 years of age.
Dr. Waters practiced internal medicine and nephrology for 44 years in the Atlanta area. He was an Atlanta native and was both the son and father of Atlanta internists. After he and Mrs. Waters moved to Newnan in September 2007, he began writing weekly medical columns for The Times-Herald and published them in three small books called “The Doctor Is In.” As a faculty member of Emory Medical School in the 1960s, he was instrumental in the development of the chronic renal dialysis (artificial kidney) program in Atlanta and was the nephrology team leader of the first kidney transplant program in the Southeast.
A graduate of Emory Medical School, he practiced from 1970 until his retirement in 2002 in the Piedmont Hospital complex, together with Dr. Charles E. Harrison Jr., and from 1989 to 2002 with his son, Dr. Williams C. Waters IV. He was for seven years Chairman of Internal Medicine at Piedmont and for 20 years a member of the Governing Board. He was chairman of the Piedmont Board from 1992 to 1995.
Dr. Waters was governor for Georgia of the American College of Physicians from 1980-84 and in 1996 was elected a Master of American College of Physicians, a degree carried by only some 300 physicians in the U.S. and some eight doctors in Georgia’s history.
As first a full-time faculty member and later as part of the volunteer faculty of Emory University School of Medicine, Dr. Waters continued to teach medical students and residents throughout his life. He made rounds with residents at Grady Memorial Hospital in the 1970s and ‘80s, had one or more senior medical students as clinical clerks in his office continuously from 1962 to 1992, and gave lectures to freshman and sophomore medical students. He helped originate the Problem-Based Learning program and served as a mentor in these popular small-session seminars. The Emory faculty appointed him to a variety of groups, including two search committees for the Dean of the medical school.
In the 1960s Dr. Waters had collaborated with Dr. William Schwartz of Boston’s Tufts Medical School in the first clinical description of a condition known as spontaneous lactic acidosis, a potentially deadly disturbance of body chemistry. He later wrote some 35 papers on various internal medicine and nephrology topics, and contributed chapters to the well-known cardiology textbook, “The Heart,” edited by Drs., Willis Hurst, and Bruce Logue. He was widely regarded as an expert diagnostician and often saw patients with difficult problems referred by physicians throughout the Southeast. In 1990 he received the first Internist-Laureate award from the Georgia Chapter of the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Waters was a member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the Medical Association of Atlanta, and the Medical Association of Georgia, of whose Board he was a member for 14 years. Other memberships included the American Society of Nephrology, the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine, the Southeastern Clinical Club, and the Atlanta Clinical Society. He was board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine as well as the American Board of Nephrology and contributed questions for their regular examinations. He was cited in several publications identifying Best Doctors in America and in Atlanta. Within the last few years, he helped create the Internal Medical Division of the Multiple Sclerosis Center of Atlanta, recruiting five other internists to serve the general medical needs of the many MS patients at the center. In March 2007 Piedmont Hospital opened the Waters Pavilion, a floor of executive suites financed by donors, including several of Dr. Waters’ patients. In February 2007, he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Georgia Hospital Association for his various achievements in the healthcare area.
He played the violin as an avocation and performed in a number of groups, including the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra, the Georgia Academy of Music Adult Ensemble, the Northside United Methodist Church Orchestra, and the Atlanta Lawyers Orchestra. He participated in the “Unmanageable Care,” a mainly doctor-combo dedicated to old-time music. Writing for the general public became a passion in his later life, and his book, “The Grand Disguise,” which characterized the problems and solutions for medicine, received wide distribution and attention from many sectors, including such authorities as economist Milton Friedman and the late U.S. Senator Paul Coverdell. He also produced a series of white papers, novels, and sketches, many of which have not been publicly circulated, and was working on others. In the fall of 2005, he published a novel, “Before I Sleep,” detailing the activities and thoughts of an internist during 24 hours on call. His latest book, “Two Days That Ruined Your Health Care,” has sold some 17,000 copies.
He was a member of Northside United Methodist Church and a Board member of The Piedmont Foundation, chairman of the Board of Visitors of Piedmont, and board member of the Davies Library and the Vinings Historic Preservation Society. He was a member of the Piedmont Driving Club and the Atlanta Country Club.
He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Sarah Ann Bankston Waters (herself a fifth-generation Atlantan); a son, Dr. William C. Waters IV, and his wife Teresa, of Carrollton; and a daughter, Sarah Walker Waters McEntire, and her husband, Dennis, of Newnan; two grandchildren, Sarah Elizabeth McEntire Williams and her husband Clay, and William Clay McEntire; nephews, James Walker Bankston Jr., Richard D. Waters and Robert D. Bankston; and nieces, Jacqueline Ann Johnston and Nancy Bailey Waters.
