When Two Doctors Served OC Before Hospital

When Two Doctors Served OC Before Hospital
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In the years before Atlantic General Hospital opened in Berlin, the nearest hospital was 30 miles away in Salisbury. The 10th Street Medical Center of Dr. Francis J. Townsend, right, and Dr. Hunter R. Mann, Jr., left, provided emergency medical care to both locals and tourists in Ocean City.

Dr. Townsend’s father had been Ocean City’s first doctor from 1901 until his death in 1945. He would often ride a bicycle down the Boardwalk to make house calls or deliver a baby. Dr. Frank Townsend Jr. would continue the family medical tradition for another 40 years. He became a major supporter of building a hospital in Worcester County and was named Ocean City’s “Citizen of the Year” in 1990 for his lifetime of service to the town.

Dr. Mann had been a prominent surgeon in Salisbury before moving to Ocean City and forming a partnership with Dr. Townsend in 1969. He often remarked that his years practicing medicine in Ocean City were the most satisfying of his career. Mann died in 1987 and Townsend in 2001. Both will be remembered for the lives they saved when the closest emergency room was a 30-minute ambulance ride away.

Photo from 1977 courtesy of Hannah Mann