A career in medicine throughout six decades took a turn Thursday when Dr. Clifford Tillman closed his medical office.

Although he will continue to read electrocardiograms at Natchez Regional Medical Center, he no longer will see patients. It is a big step for him, he conceded. But he is ready for the change.

“I have one predominant thought right now,” Tillman said. “It is hard to believe, I know, but I can sit right here today and say that, minute by minute, I would not change one of those minutes in my life.”

Tillman was born in Natchez in 1920, grew up in an idyllic neighborhood where he learned to love the natural world. And he points to early childhood as a time he began to say that someday he would be a medical doctor.

“I remember riding a tricycle in the hallway of my mother’s house and my leg was bleeding from a small cut,” Tillman said.

“No one seemed to be remotely interested in my wound except for my mother. The conversation with her about it seemed to be meaningful to me. From that point on, when someone asked what I wanted to be, I said I wanted to be a doctor.”

Other early influences helped to mold him into the student who excelled at Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt School of Medicine, where he was recipient of the Founder’s Medal, the highest student honor.

“I think the one real trait that I have that has made my life successful is that I work hard,” he said. “But where does that come from? I think I’m being directed, and I’m very grateful for that.”

Tillman opened his medical practice in Natchez in 1951, specializing in internal medicine and cardiology.

He graduated from medical school in 1944, completed an internship and then went into the Army. “They allowed us to finish an internship in order for us to be more useful during the war, to actually be doctors,” he said.

There continued to be real patriotism in the United States during the 1940s, when he worked as a doctor on a ship that transported troops to and from the Orient. “It was far different from the atmosphere today,” he said.

A first lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps, he remained in the service for two years. “It was nothing glorious,” he said. “The ship was converted from a grain ship to a transport ship.”

Those two years provided experience he valued, however. “There were 1,500 people on board. I was the only doctor,” he said. “I can remember setting broken legs with an open book off to one side. I had not had much training in mechanical things.”

Following his Army service, Tillman worked for one year with one of the country’s renowned pathologists at Vanderbilt. He went on to finish four more years of training before heading to Natchez to begin his practice.

“Everybody said, ‘this boy ought to be a teacher,’” he said. “I said no. I had decided being a professor was not for me. And here I am these many years later and I do not regret it.”

He had a clear plan in his mind — to make a difference in people’s lives. “I had all the fine motivations that doctors had in those days,” he said.

As he ponders the days ahead when he will have more free time to pursue his many interests, he thinks first of his love of natural history.

Further, he will spend more time in his workshop, where he enjoys working in stained glass and pewter.

He looks back on the years since he met his wife, Sarah, and gives her much credit for the happiness and success he has had. “My mainstay is Sarah. She puts up with me and always has been for me in whatever I wanted to do.”

They met when he was a senior in medical school and she was a professor at the nursing school.

Tillman was instrumental in the push to get a new hospital for Natchez soon after returning to his hometown. And he has been active in numerous civic affairs, especially in guiding the board at the Judge George W. Armstrong Library.

Two sons followed him into medicine, Dr. Randy Tillman and Dr. Barry Tillman. And in the next generation, a grandson and a grandson-in-law are entering medical training, also.