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‘He was special’: Colleague remembers WVU Medicine physician killed in car wreck

It wasn't that Rhonda Conley didn't know what she was doing.

Back in Ohio, the certified midwife had helped bring 20 babies into the world over the first several months of her career.

Then, a job opportunity delivered her and her family to Morgantown - where a baby boom abounded.

"It went from that to 40 to 50 deliveries," she said.

That was at Women's Health Care of Morgantown, the practice operated by Dr. William Hamilton, an OB-GYN physician and her new boss, who also paid for moving expenses for her family, while helping them locate a house in the University City.

Conley worried she was still making baby steps in the midst of all the gestational jumping.

"Dr. Hamilton," the midwife remembered saying, "I don't think I can do this."

"But I know you can do this," came the reply, with a reassuring smile. "You'll be fine."

The professional and personal administering of care, she said - was just what she needed in that instant.

And that was how it was with all of his patients, she said.

Especially the first-time moms-to-be, she remembered, with their bent-spine copies of "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

They'd shuffle in, with swollen feet and the perennial waiting-room page-turner wedged under their armpit.

"What to Expect," as it turned out, was always pregnant, also, what with all those Post-It notes marking all those pertinent chapters.

News broke of Hamilton's death in a single-car crash Wednesday night near Morgantown.

In the hours' since, Conley has been thinking back on her Morgantown days at his practice. She's been thinking about Hamilton and all the babies he delivered.

And all the ones - sadly, she said - he won't get to, now.

Hamilton was part of the Morgantown medical community and West Virginia University medical community across the Mountain State for nearly 50 years.

He was most recently a visiting physician at WVU Medicine Grant Memorial in Petersburg.

"We are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Dr. William Hamilton, who served our hospital and community," said Felicity Ours, Grant Memorial's president and CEO.

"We are grateful for the time, expertise and compassion he shared with our patients, families and healthcare team," she continued.

"Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with Dr. Hamilton's family, loved ones, colleagues and all those who were fortunate to know him."

Hamilton talked a little bit about his life and times during a previous appointment in central West Virginia, telling a Clarksburg media outlet he grew up in Nitro, and got into medical school at WVU by way of his hitch in the U.S. Air Force.

The physician's undergraduate degree in chemistry was earned at Muskingum College in Conley's native Ohio.

He changed his focus midway through his residency, he said.

"I enjoyed being with patients at such a happy time," he explained. "It is exciting to bring new life into the world."

Conley enjoyed the life affirmation he brought to his clinic, also.

She was moved that he became part of countless family albums - and that he kept in contact with her family, too, after her retirement and move back to her native Buckeye State.

"He cared for his patients and he cared about his patients. He was special."