Published Monday, Feb. 15, 1999 
By Jennifer HallThe Farrell doctor also helped challenge a local school of nursing, which had not admitted an African-American student for eight years. He is also a past president of the Mercer County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the local chapter of the American Heart Association and the Mercer County Medical Society.
"I just did what needed to be done," said Yarboro, who will turn 67 on Tuesday.
Plaques adorn the wall of his office, declaring distinguished service from a variety of groups including the American Medical Association. Scrapbooks in the corner keep track of his accomplishments, his family and other leading African Americans in the county.
Yarboro believes he may have inherited his passion for medicine. His grandfather, William F. Edwards, was considered a faith healer and made medicines from herbs. Several of his treatments were patented for Edwards Medical Co., including one dated Dec. 7, 1909, for blood tonics.
Yarboro never met his grandfather, but his mother kept several of his medical books. Yarboro laminated the Caringpatents and pages of the books.
Yarboro said he thought about becoming a surgeon. At the time -- when black doctors could be trained at only two universities -- black surgeons also needed to establish a family practice because other doctors would not refer patients to them.
"I didn't want to have to do all of that," Yarboro explained, noting that he completed a general practice program at a Warren, Ohio, hospital in December 1964. It was one of the few hospitals accepting African Americans.
When he came to Mercer County, Yarboro said, reactions to him were mixed.
"I was a doctor and they (bankers) were telling me I couldn't afford a $96-a-month mortgage," he said, adding he was told he needed a successful white doctor in the area to co-sign for him. "That was the African-American experience," he said.
"The market was strong with an African-American doctor ill (and) the other based in Youngstown and only working part-time here," he said. "I serve all races. Some (African Americans) prefer a black doctor and a lot don't."
Yarboro focuses some of his efforts on sickle cell anemia, a hereditary blood disease that primarily affects blacks. But he believes it's his attention to patients and his ability to relate to them that has advanced his practice.
"When you have a family practice, people like to be able to come in and talk to you," he said. "It's then that I realize what their problem may be rather than through a quick examination.
Patterson earned degrees from North Carolina A&T College, Howard University School of Medicine and Provident Hospital in Baltimore.
Arriving at the end of the Depression, Patterson found that many of his patients were poor. As prosperity returned, Patterson's practice followed suit, according to a history of Patterson written by Dr. Theodore Yarboro.
But many of his patients were still poor, which never seemed to affect his love and care for them, Yarboro wrote.
Patterson treated many people for free because he was more concerned about his patients than money. He never refused to treat a patient because he couldn't pay, and he responded to calls even if he had never before treated the patient.
Patterson was a big man with big hands and a big heart, Yarboro wrote. He spent long hours by suffering patients' bedsides in their homes.
Even after long, hard days of caring for the sick, he never hesitated to answer calls in the wee hours of the morning, the essay says.
Though Patterson never affiliated with any church while practicing medicine, he had strong convictions about the role of spiritual guidance in medical care, Yarboro wrote.
Even if he were unexpectedly called away from his office, leaving a crowded waiting room, he would return and work until everyone was treated, the paper says. Despite advice from his family and friends to slow down, he would interrupt vacations to return home to see a seriously ill patient.
Patterson continued to treat patients, even though at times he appeared to be sicker than they were, the essay said. Never giving up hope of actively practicing again, he had his office remodeled just a few months before he died.
