HUNTINGTON BEACH : ‘Best Doctor There Is’ to Call It Quits Jan. 1

Dr. Bernard Mason charged his patients $3 for an office visit and $5 for a house call. He delivered babies for a $100 fee. If people couldn’t pay, he took care of them anyway.

Mason, 82, a physician and surgeon, has practiced out of the same tiny medical office at 3rd Street and Walnut Avenue since 1947. He has been so busy treating children and grandchildren of his original patients that he closed his practice to new patients about 16 years ago.

“I think I may be the oldest G.P. in Orange County,” he said.

But the era will come to an end on Jan. 1., when Mason retires. “I always thought I would stay here until I had my coronary and call it quits,” he said.

He’s not quitting because he’s tired or ill but because of what he says are restricting government regulations for the care of his Medicare patients.

“The government tells you who, when, how often and how to treat patients. I know my patients. The bureaucrats are getting into medicine. I can’t change after 50 years of practice,” he said.

Mason is an old-time, small-town doctor without equal, patients said.

“He’s absolutely the best doctor there is,” said Madeline Ellis, his patient for more than 30 years. “He always gets you well. He’s an old-time doctor who always listens and is interested in your family. He has time for you.”

Another patient, Jerry Person, said that Mason is an institution. “He brought in and saw out many of our city’s finest people,” Person said. “He always reminds patients to quit smoking and to drink less coffee and eat less salt. He lets you know in no uncertain terms what will keep you healthy and how to live a long life.”

At Orange Coast College, where Mason was the football team doctor for 40 years, the field house is named for him.

Mason said he plans to be a volunteer doctor at Orange Coast College medical clinic or at a community clinic.

He received a medical degree from Penn State University in 1932 and did graduate work at New York Medical College and intern work in Philadelphia and at the Panama Canal. He was in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946 and served part of that time in Australia. Jill Hunter, who has been his office assistant for 14 years, said that teary patients have been dropping by the office to pay their respects and leave small gifts.

“All of us will really miss him. He mixes medicine, wisdom, logic and compassion,” Hunter said. “He’s a great doctor and a great man. You put it all together and it spells Dr. Mason. “