Dr. Noah Richason hasn’t worked at West Georgia Behavioral Health since the summer of 2012, but patients still call and ask for him.
“They ask if he opened his own practice yet,” said Sheena Bowen, a certified medical assistant at the health facility. “They want to know where he is so they can go there, too.”
Richason, a psychiatrist, was in fact working on opening his own practice. It was one of his dreams, said his wife, Dr. Jennifer Beckman Richason.
“He went to medical school knowing he wanted to be a psychiatrist,” she said. “And after West Georgia, he worked more on a temp basis so he could open his own practice.”
The plan was that his wife, who is also a psychiatrist and is still uses her maiden name professionally, would join the new practice once it was up and running. The couple had big plans. It was a few months past the first birthday of their son, Maslow Miles Richason, when they started talking about having another child. But in February, an unexpected diagnosis of end-stage pancreatic cancer brought all those plans to a halt, Beckman said.
Noah Casey Todd Richason died Sept. 10 from complications of the cancer. He was 41.
Per his wishes, Richason was cremated and a memorial service is planned for Monday, the day of the couple’s third wedding anniversary, in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Whitley-Garner at Rosehaven Funeral Home, Douglasville, was in charge of cremation arrangements.
As a child Richason moved around a lot, said his mother, Christine Ater. After attending several schools, he asked his mother whether he could be home schooled, his wife said.
“I was a firefighter and had crazy schedules,” she said, “so he taught himself.”
Richason graduated from George Washington University in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He decided to go to medical school because he felt he could do even more good as a psychiatrist, his wife said.
He graduated from the University of South Florida College of Medicine in 2007 and finished his psychiatry residency at Wake Forest University Medical Center in 2011. In September 2012, he was certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
The career choice was a natural fit, said Nathan Sloan, a cousin with whom Richason shared a brotherly relationship.
“Even in his last days, he was asking about others,” Sloan said. “He genuinely cared about what was happening in the lives of others.”
Richason knew he could provide a different level of patient care if he had his own practice, his wife and cousin said. He could spend as much time as necessary with patients and not feel rushed so he could do what he did best, help people.
That is why the calls still come at West Georgia Behavioral Health, Bowen said.
“He gave people hope,” the medical assistant said. “And sometimes that’s all people need, somebody to listen and a little hope.”
In addition to his wife, infant son and mother, Richason is survived by his father, Mark Hayden Richason of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and his maternal grandmother, Beverly Delery Ater.
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