Dr. Jeff Haggenjos retires after 47 years

NEW LEXINGTON, Ohio – In 1979, a doctor saw a need in a small town and set up shop. 47 years later, he’s now set to retire with years of experience and stories to tell.

Jeff Haggenjos was born and raised in Illinois, where he got a unique head start in anatomy by working with his father.

“My father was a funeral director, and so I used to help him a little bit. I embalmed my first body in 3rd grade and my first autopsy at 8th grade. So you know medicine wasn’t foreign to me,” Haggenjos said.

After getting his doctorate from Midwestern University of Chicago, Haggenjos started looking for work and narrowed it down to two drastically different places.

“… it was between here (New Lexington) and Milwaukee, and the thing that when I came here, there was a need for a doctor. They didn’t have doctors at that time, which we have a lot of people now,” Haggenjos said.

steady presence in New Lexington for the past 47 years and has served as the team physician for New Lexington High School’s football team since 1987. While serving this rural community, he’s seen a lot of other doctors come and go during that time.

“I’ve stayed here a long time and the problem that I see in a lot of doctors, everybody wants to flip around. I don’t know. They want to be four or five years here and move on. I think that I’ve taken care of many, five generations, of patients and so it makes me understand a little bit more about the family and certain things to look for,” Haggenjos said. “Cause certain diseases, certain conditions run in the family and that way it gives me some idea to look for that for the generations afterwards.”

Dr. Haggenjos is set to retire from Fairfield Medical Center after his final shift on Thursday.