Robert (Bob) & Janet Hickman

Janet and Bob Hickman met on the campus of Southern Illinois University when they were participants in a summer science program for high school students. When they went back home, Janet to Mankato, Minnesota, and Bob to Benton, Illinois, they started writing letters, attended each other’s senior proms, and then sustained their relationship through their college years at Michigan State (Janet) and the University of Illinois (Bob). They married in 1967, just before both started medical school at Harvard. After two years at Duke for internships and residency in Internal Medicine, the U.S. Army sent Bob to Germany for a two-year tour and employed Janet as a civilian physician at a nearby base. Returning to Duke they completed specialty training in Dermatology (Janet) and Gastroenterology (Bob), and in 1979 they joined a wave of new medical subspecialists starting practices in Lynchburg.

Bob established Gastroenterology Associates and was president of the joint medical staff at Virginia Baptist and Lynchburg General when the decision was made to merge the two hospitals, creating Centra Health. Janet joined Dermatology Consultants and their Education and Research Foundation, Inc. She became the first woman president of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine and also served as president of the Virginia Dermatological Society and the national Women’s Dermatologic Society.

On the home front, the Hickmans have pursued interests in cooking and horticulture, growing heirloom apples, harvesting honey from their own bee hives, and cherishing several generations of bull terriers. As an Azalea resident, Bob has been an enthusiastic member of the WC pool volleyball group. Janet sings in the choir at St. John’s Episcopal Church and is a founding member of the Women Doctors book group. She is the current president of the American Daffodil Society and is working with Lynchburg’s Old City Cemetery to expand their historic daffodil collection. Last fall she planted the 1000 daffodil varieties she “couldn’t live without” around their cottage while it was being renovated.

The Hickmans have three sons (one computer game programmer, one musician, and one physician, who will be a second-generation gastroenterologist), four granddaughters, and a new grandson.