Blue-collar doctor
Dr. Ernie hopes to treat workers in the Randolph-Fulton Market District. But the old guard has yet to warm up to him.

By LAURA PUTRE, Editor

Chicago Journal

October 6, 2005

Villegas awaits patients in his physical therapy area.
Photo by Josh Hawkins

West Loop

Ernesto Villegas counts sorting candy-corn trays and lifting 100-pound sugar bags as two of the high points of his medical career. He used to be medical director for the Brach’s plant on the West Side of Chicago, until the plant relocated to Argentina. While there, he persuaded plant managers to reduce the height of the hard-candy carts so when workers loaded trays of Root Beer Barrels onto shelves, they wouldn’t strain their backs.

"It was fun to walk down the line and play with things, like the weights of the trays, to figure out what’s the best design to create a safe and healthy work area," says Villegas, noting that he’s always had an interest in design. "I like quality things that work well." The son of a McDonnell-Douglas inventory man, Villegas also enjoys talking shop with factory workers and dropping by restaurant kitchens to chat with the cooks about on-the-job hazards.

An easygoing yet attentive sort who insists his patients call him "Ernie," Villegas used to work in a large occupational medicine practice, where he witnessed injured workers herded through various holding pens until they were stitched up and sent home, never to be heard from again. Increasingly irked by the lack of interaction with patients, he decided to go solo and devote more time to relationships.

"I said to myself, ‘This is it,’ " he recalls. " ‘Stop complaining and do it yourself.’ "

So earlier this year, Villegas opened Ergomedica in a renovated warehouse space at 311 N. Aberdeen. Specializing in minor industrial trauma, he set up shingle among produce wholesalers and meatpacking outfits in the Randolph Fulton Market District, figuring they would like a little more personal attention than a bandage and a slap on the back.

"Blue-collar people are not always treated with the same level of service as people with more means," he says. "I can treat everyone with respect, and it doesn’t cost me a thing".

To cut down on paperwork, the Stanford-schooled Villegas uses a dictation machine with voice-recognition software so he can spend just a few minutes between patients recording his observations. He also talks to the employer and the worker’s comp people directly, so everybody gets the same information.

But the thing is, Villegas hasn’t yet been able to establish a foothold in the neighborhood. Most days, his sunny, spacious office is empty except for his secretary, Ruth, and a waiting room full of funky yet spine-friendly celadon chairs. The weights in the window-walled physical therapy room sit unused against exposed-brick and citrus-colored walls, as cool jazz filters through the overhead speakers.

"I’m in the process where I’m starting to meet people," Villegas says. "There’s sort of a misconception that larger corporations do what I do are better." He’s attended neighborhood functions (like last week’s grand opening of Jerry Kleiner’s new restaurant in the West Loop) and tried to set up meetings with plant managers, but so far, hasn’t had much luck. He’s hoping that the open house he’ll have during the Fulton Art Walk next week, which will feature paintings by a local artist named Michael Stack, might drum up some more interest.

The manufacturing district needs Villegas, but folks there just don’t know it yet, says Yolanda Silva, an administrator at the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago in the nearby Kinzie Industrial Corridor. Most employers in the neighborhood, she says, rely solely on doctors at Concentra, a large practice on Lake Street, to treat work-related injuries because Concentra fills out the paperwork efficiently. But Concentra is "so overwhelmed with people that they treat them like an assembly line," she says. She says she’s sent three workers in two years there. "They gave them the medical attention they required. But when they were there they were treated like cattle."

One of ICNC’s employees who suffered a back injury received scant follow-up "even though he kept complaining about the pain," says Silva. "They kept saying ‘You’re fine, there’s nothing we can do with you.’ He still has problems."

Silva figures that Villegas has two woes: He doesn’t have much client parking in an area lacking in on-street spaces, and he’s dealing with people who don’t like change. "They are so used to Concentra—and they also like the fact that they don’t have to worry about paperwork," Silva says. "Concentra worries about everything. You send them the employees and they take care of the rest. If they send employees to Dr. Villegas, the employers don’t know what is going to happen—who will be dealing with insurance, dealing with the employees when the time for payments comes.

"It’s very hard. Sometimes people are set in their ways. They need to see the difference between the Concentras of the world and the personal touch from this doctor, and that can only happen if they get hurt themselves."

And when they do, Villegas will be waiting expectantly for them.