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Urologist, St. Cloud Regional Medical Center

It’s only been 7 months since he joined the staff at St. Cloud Regional Medical Center, but Axel Anderson already has a nickname.

“He is affectionately referred to as the ‘gentle giant,’” said CEO Rebecca Brewer.

Anderson’s stature – he stands 6-feet, 6-inches tall – accounts for the physical reference in that endearing moniker, but it is his unassuming disposition with staff and patients that accounts for the rest.

“We are most fortunate to have Dr. Anderson on our team. … We are so pleased with his patient care; it is second to none,” Brewer said.

And the admiration is mutual.

“I’m very happy here. It has worked out really well,” said Anderson. “My neighbor is Dr. Virgil Sanchez, an anesthesiologist. He works at St. Cloud and Osceola Regional. He talked with Rebecca (Brewer) and she said she needed a urologist,” Anderson recalled.

“I had been (at St. Cloud Regional) about 5 years ago and it was obvious (the previous owners) weren’t investing in the infrastructure,” he said, so he wasn’t very interested in pursuing any new possibilities. But Sanchez talked him into meeting with Brewer and revisiting the facility. “It was completely different after HMA bought it,” said Anderson, referring to Naples-based Health Management Associates. “They were putting money into it. They cleaned it up. And Rebecca was a real fireball recruiting other doctors. I could sense the opportunity,” he said. “The population was growing and there was no urology coverage (at St. Cloud), so it was a good situation for both of us.”

“He has not only filled a void in urology, but (his presence) also has expanded services available locally for urological patients at St. Cloud,” said Brewer.

Anderson’s arrival at St. Cloud followed 20 years of practicing in downtown Orlando, where he and Patrick Hunter, MD, operated the Florida Urology Group. They sold that practice to Cancer Centers of Florida in 2007, but continued to participate in the multi-speciality group until Anderson came on staff at St. Cloud Regional in June 2010.

When it comes to Orlando, Anderson has perspective. He has lived here since he was 3 years old, when his father, a physician specializing in hematology and oncology, moved his family here from upstate New York.

“We knew Orlando before Disney was here. (The city) was more kid friendly back then,” he recalled. “Not that it’s a bad place now,” Anderson added, but “back then we walked and rode our bikes everywhere. Parents felt that we were safe and that you could get to school and back safely. Without our parents around, we had some freedom, and going to and from school was a social experience. I think kids today are missing out on a lot of good times,” in that regard, he said.

Anderson, 54, and his brother, who is two years younger and an allergist practicing in downtown Orlando, grew up on Lake Lurna, not far from Orlando Regional Medical Center. “The lake wasn’t big enough for a motorboat, but we canoed and skim-boarded all the time,” he said.

Axel IV used to accompany his father as he made rounds at hospitals. “At age 15, I was a phlebotomist,” Anderson said, “before certification was a big deal like it is now. That’s when I first realized I had a gift. I enjoyed helping the patients and it did not seem like a job.”

After graduating from Vanderbilt University’s pre-med program, Anderson went to the Dominican Republic for his first two years of medical school, where he learned to speak conversational Spanish in 3 months. When it came time to interact with patients, “I knew I couldn’t finish at that school, so I transferred to Ross University, which is in Dominica, an English-speaking island nation in the Windward Islands,” he said. Ross was affiliated with medical schools in America, so Anderson spent the next few years “doing clerkships up and down the east coast of the United States.”

One such clerkship took him to Boston, and while visiting a friend there, Anderson met the woman who would become his wife and mother of their four children.

“It was the first day I was there, and the Royal Wedding (Princess Diana and Prince Charles) was on TV. My friend asked me to join him and his friend, Sharon, on a lakeside picnic. When I saw her, it was just one of those moments,” Anderson said. It was June 1981 and she was an ultrasound technician at a hospital. “We were married in June 1982,” and I moved her to Jacksonville,” where Anderson completed a residency in general surgery at University Hospital in Jacksonville, which was followed by an internship in urology at Memorial Medical Center in Savannah, Ga., and finally a three-year urology residency at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.

From there, the Andersons made a bee-line back to Orlando to open his urology practice and raise their children. Today, their sons are aged 28, 26, and 25, and their daughter just turned 21.

For exercise and fun, Anderson likes to ride his bike on the trails near their home in Winter Park. He also dabbles in landscape photography and golf when he can find time. One day, he would like to follow-up on the piano lessons he took when he was a child.

But there is competition for time spent on those pursuits:

“I really like cooking,” Anderson said. “It’s very relaxing to me. I like the whole process – finding the recipe, getting everything together. I don’t even mind shopping for the groceries,” he said. “Sometimes I do all that and just let my wife do the cooking. That’s one way I get what I want to eat!”

But if home repairs are on the menu, forget it. “I’m the worst handyman. Electrical. Plumbing. I just don’t like doing that stuff. I can’t even hang pictures,” he laughed.

Lacking a certain set of skills may be the case at home, but at the hospital, Anderson knows what he does best.

“I’m what I call a general urologist. I don’t really specialize in anything,” he explained. “I’ve been in practice long enough to know what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. I think it’s really important for all physicians to understand that. A lot (of physicians) feel like they have to do everything. If more doctors and specialists were tuned in better to what they’re very good at, as opposed to trying to be supermen, they’d be a lot happier and so would their patients,” Anderson said.

“That’s always been my philosophy and I don’t think I’ve lost any business because of it. In fact, most patients appreciate the honesty. … There is no way you can do everything really well. Everybody has their strengths and I try to focus on those.”

Tags:

, Dominica, Dr. Axel Anderson IV, Health Management Associates, Rebecca Brewer, Ross University, St. Cloud Regional Medical Center, urologist

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