Dr. Paul Kosko will close his office’s doors on June 15 — nearly 38 years after seeing his first patient there in 1978.
Kosko, originally from Ohio, said he opened the Kosko Eye Clinic at 1503 Strong Ave. as a young man with a vision and little money.
“At that time, you had to buy your own clinic. We bought this house and renovated it,” Dr. Kosko said.
The clinic has had three expansions since then.
Dr. Kosko believes settling in Greenwood must have been written in his destiny.
His mother was a Mississippi native, and he had relatives here, but what brought him to the state was a track scholarship at the University of Mississippi. While at Ole Miss, he “met a Greenwood girl and married her,” he said. The two were wed in 1970, the same year that he graduated from college.
Immediately after completing his undergraduate education, Kosko worked one year for a forensic pathologist in Memphis.
He then attended the University of Mississippi Medical Center for medical school, finishing there in 1974.
When he began at UMMC, Kosko was interested in becoming an orthopedist — but two things changed his mind.
First, he realized he just didn’t like bones all that much; they made him queasy. Then, after his first year at UMMC, he and his wife, Elizabeth Kosko, had their first son. This son was born with several disabilities, including blindness in one eye.
“You know how God works,” Mrs. Kosko said. “All things work together for the good.”
His love for his son, combined with the interactions he had with ophthalmologists while caring for him, led him to choose that specialty, his wife said.
“It’s been a great match for him, and he’s loved it,” she said.
To make ends meet, he worked weekends in the Greenwood Leflore Hospital emergency room while also being a resident in the ophthalmology program at UMMC. Moonlighting in the emergency room gave him the opportunity to become connected with Greenwood, he said.
“I was very impressed with the nursing staff and the medical staff,” Kosko said. “The thing that I really liked was just how excellent they were.”
The Koskos said the kindness and knowledgeability of the staff all those years ago kept the pair in the city.
“I enjoyed what I did to the point that I looked forward to going to work every day, and I came home happy every day,” Dr. Kosko said as he thought about his nearly 40-year-long career.
“It’s been a very difficult decision to decide when to close,” he said. “It’s not an easy decision to just stop.”
Mrs. Kosko said her husband had seen the clinic as sort of “a ministry opportunity.”
“People come through your door not necessarily by your own design but by God’s design,” she said. Keeping that in mind, Dr. Kosko has valued each of the relationships he’s built with his patients.
The doctor said he still remembers the hardest day of his career, which was at least 25 years ago.
A woman came into his office with her young daughter and said she felt something wasn’t right with her child’s eyes. After giving the toddler an eye exam, Kosko saw that she had cancer in both eyes. He had to clear his schedule for the rest of the day so that he could give his full attention to the patient and her mother.
However, Dr. Kosko said he’s appreciative of hard days like that one. “If I didn’t have days like that, I might have to pay to do this job,” he said.
The field has seen advances that seemed unimaginable 30 years ago, he said. When he started, cataract surgery — which is among the most common procedures — meant a one-week hospitalization. Today it’s all outpatient care, and some patients don’t even require eye patches.
Now Kosko looks forward to retirement. He has seven grandchildren and another on the way, and he can’t wait to be a full-time grandparent.
The Koskos have four sons. Three are in the medical field, and their youngest son followed in his father’s footsteps and is also an ophthalmologist. The Koskos said that their oldest son inspired the entire family.
“He’s our special boy,” Mrs. Kosko said.
Dr. Kosko said he was grateful for all of the cards and phone calls that he had received since he announced his retirement.
“It’s been a good life,” he said.
•Contact Chloe Ricks at 581-7124 or cricks@gwcommonwealth.com.
