This is a story about a young man who felt led to give back to his community in a very special vocation that has spanned over fifty years of service. He is still the same down-to-earth person his parents raised him to be and became what a caring and compassionate doctor should be.
Dennis Hatter grew up in Sherando, graduated from Wilson High School in 1966 and went on to Eastern Mennonite College from 1967-70. Although he didn’t have any idea of a career in medicine when he went to college, after high school he worked evenings as an orderly/attendant at the Waynesboro Hospital and during the day he worked for his uncle in construction. “After I started college, I worked 40 hours a week as an attendant at Rockingham Hospital on the 11pm-7am shift. One semester I wanted to take two classes that were scheduled at the same time early in the morning and the professor told the teachers, go ahead and let him take both classes because he’ll sleep through them anyway!”
Dr. Hatter said, “After college and during the one year I attended Eastern Mennonite Seminary in 1970, I married LuAnne Lehman, who had graduated with a teaching degree. She was of Swiss descent and her parents spoke the native language in the home and one day while we were dating, her father called me a name that I didn’t understand so I asked LuAnne what it meant. She laughed and said it meant “mountain goat,” and said her dad was trying to be polite and not call me a “hillbilly.”
Dr. Hatter in his vegetable garden
Dr. Hatter said he was about halfway through college and working as an orderly when the medical field began to grow on him and he started taking pre-med courses. After four years at Eastern Mennonite, he enrolled at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) in Richmond and began a long career as a family practice physician. In Dr. Hatter’s words, “At that time, you didn’t go into a job because it was a good profession; you went into it because you wanted to serve the community. I’ve tried to do that through the years and that attitude gives a whole new perspective as to how you treat people.”
While Hatter was completing four years of family medicine at MCV, LuAnne taught fourth grade at a Richmond elementary school. The couple later moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where Dr. Hatter was in a three-year Family Practice Residency Program at Williamsport Hospital. When it ended, the Hatters began looking around for places to practice. It came down to two choices; Grantsville, Maryland, where a college friend was working or moving back to Virginia. They decided on a private practice in Stuarts Draft that Dr. John Forbes III had started in 1965. Dr. Hatter came on as an associate in 1978 along with another young doctor named Richard Miller, who had come the year before. At first, it wasn’t clear whether the small practice would be busy enough for three MDs but Dr. Hatter said his first day on the job he saw twenty people and it hasn’t slacked off since. In addition to seeing patients at the office, the three doctors divided their time seeing their patients at Waynesboro Hospital, as well as covering the emergency room. Dr. Hatter also saw the residents at the Blue Ridge Christian Home. They delivered babies, made house calls, and stitched wounds as needed. Assisting Dr. Hatter for thirty-three years was his dependable nurse, Sylvia Coffey.
By this time, the Hatters were the parents of three sons; Chad, Stuart, and Charlie, all of whom were heavily involved in sports.
Dr. Hatter with a young Liberian boy
The original office was located on First Street in Stuarts Draft and moved to their present location at 24 Gloucester Road in 2006, the same year Dr. Samuel Hostetter joined the practice. Several years earlier, smaller practices were having difficulty because of complicated insurance contracts, so many of them were bought out by larger hospitals. UVA Hospital bought out the Stuarts Draft practice in 2004 and the work load was lightened when specialists came into the picture, along with ER and hospital doctors.
Asked if people ever stopped him on the street to ask about a medical problem Dr. Hatter said, “One day I was in the hardware store buying paint when a man walked up to me, pulled up his shirt to show me a persistent rash he had on his back. It’s not so bad if you are by yourselves but in a public place it’s kind of embarrassing! Another man who had come to the office with a very inflamed toe told me, ‘It’s as tender as a mother’s love.’ And I remember the woman who came into the office very annoyed with me and when I asked why, she said, ‘You didn’t answer the question I forgot to ask you the last time I was in!” And whenever one of the older mountain people came in, the staff always referred them to me, saying, ‘You can understand them and know how to talk to them!’
The Hatters moved from Stuarts Draft to the Love community in 1990 and in the years that followed he said he made countless house calls on his way home to Love from work.
In 2019, Dr. Hatter retired from full-time work and began volunteering for Samaritan’s Purse in Kenya, Africa. He spent four years with the organization, going for four to six-weeks at a time to small villages to treat Kenyans. Later, he found he needed some part-time work to keep up with the latest medical advances and returned to the practice, working two half-days a week, which he has continued to do.
For the last two years he has volunteered with Global Health Outreach, a Christian mission organization out of Tennessee, traveling to Gambia and Liberia to treat patients who had a variety of wounds, stomach disorders, parasites and cancers. Dr. Hatter also arranged teams of his own to go to Haiti quite a few times.
Dr. Hatter now works primarily for UVA at Waynesboro Primary Care in Ladd and fills in at Stuarts Draft when the need arises. The Hatters now live in Waynesboro and are active members of Mountain View Church, with Dr. Hatter serving as an elder. They enjoy attending their grandchildren’s sporting events and Dr. Hatter maintains a large vegetable garden each year. He and his siblings take care of their mother, Jean, who is still living independently at 97 years of age.
Dr. Hatter’s medical school graduation photo.
They say if you want to know a man, ask the people he works with. Here is just a sample of what Dr. Hatter’s nurses had to say about him:
“Dr. Hatter is a compassionate, caring and fun provider to be around. Always willing to help whoever may cross his path. He is one of a kind as a provider. Anyone who was able to work with him in his career has been truly blessed.” – Taylor Hardy
“Dr. Hatter is a provider everyone wants. He goes above and beyond no matter how much time or even time of day! He made house calls and responded to questions all hours of the day or night. He never wanted too much work for his nurses and I always had to force him to let me help him with tasks; he always just wanted to do it. He was such a pleasure to work with and always kept everyone laughing and in a good mood!” – Jennifer Moore
“Dr. Hatter represents the very best of what it means to be a physician. He doesn’t just care for patients; he truly knows them. He knows their families, their stories, and makes every person feel seen and valued. He has patients’ phone numbers memorized and personally calls them the very same day they need him. That level of compassion and dedication is something you don’t often see. No matter how busy the day becomes, he remains calm and steady and gives each patient the time and attention they require. He treats everyone with kindness and respect, and he is unwavering in his support of his staff. He has always stood behind his nurses, ensuring they felt valued and protected. His legacy is marked by exceptional medical care, countless relationships he has built and the trust he has earned throughout our community.” – Renea Alford
In this busy, hurry-up world, it is refreshing to know that there are still people like Dr. Dennis Hatter who feel the medical profession is not merely a job, but a calling to serve the community.
