Dr. Benjamin P. Owens, 88, the face of Hibbing medicine for half a century and acclaimed as the heart and soul of Minnesota medicine, died on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, at the Guardian Angels Health and Rehabilitation Center of complications from intestinal cancer.
A lifelong resident and 1942 graduate of Hibbing High School at the age of 16, Ben briefly attended the College of St. Thomas before entering the Great Lakes Naval Academy in hopes of a career as an aviator. A medical aptitude test administered to meet the needs of World War II, identified his potential as a physician, resulting in his being sent to the University of Minnesota medical school from which he graduated at the age of 22 in 1949.
Upon graduation, Ben fulfilled his military commitment with a year internship as a flight surgeon in California, and then volunteered to serve as a physician in the Naval Reserve for 15 months during the Korean Conflict, returning to Hibbing in 1952 to begin his medical practice at the Mesaba Clinic.
There he began a half century medical career marked by a compassion for people, a love of education and a community pride that would endear him to generations of Hibbing residents.
Ben loved his specialty of family practice which enabled him to know members within a family, to know them as friends and fellow humans as much as patients. In his career he made over 9,000 house calls well into the 1980s, delivered 4,358 babies, 358 in one year alone, and once estimated he had made 342,000 patient and hospital visits.
Deeply committed to rural medical practice, Ben instructed local nurses for years and served as a clinical associate professor at the University of Minnesota-Duluth Medical School in the early stages of its development. For 19 years, he often could be found, as both host and participant, in the studio of the Duluth Doctors on Call television program, presenting medical advice across the region.
His dedication and sage counsel-always delivered with commanding voice-made him an easily recognized and beloved physician.
His honors and awards bestowed on Ben are legion and give some indication of how well received and respected he was among his fellow Hibbingites and his peers throughout the state.
Locally, Ben was chosen as Grand Marshal of the 2000 Hibbing Jubilee Parade, represented Hibbing as the 2002 Titan of Taconite, and was enshrined in the high school Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009 in recognition of the 40 years he voluntarily spent as team doctor for football and hockey.
Near the start of his career, WCCO Radio awarded Ben its 1961 Good Neighbor Award for his humanitarian work in South America aboard the hospital ship USS Hope in 1960.
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Dr. Benjamin P. Owens