Dr. Steven Bruner has delivered about 4,000 Lawrence babies.

It is tough to say when, but at some point the nurses at Lawrence Memorial Hospital started calling Dr. Steven Bruner “The Fetcher.”

In the latter stages of his career, if Bruner walked into a delivery room at LMH, chances were good that it’s because things had gotten a little difficult. He would come in for a C-section delivery, or to use the forceps, a bygone device that has become “a lost art” for fetching a baby.

So, in comes The Fetcher. He even comes with his own soundtrack. Bruner is notorious for singing or humming during C-sections.

“I tell people I love to sing,” says Bruner, who has been a frequent cast member at Theatre Lawrence. “I tolerate acting, and I dance under great duress.”

Dr. Steven Bruner has delivered about 4,000 Lawrence babies.

Somewhere in there, he’s also found time to deliver about 4,000 Lawrence babies. But that part of his career is about to close. On July 1, Bruner will leave his longtime practice of Lawrence Family Medicine & Obstetrics and become a physician at Watkins Health Services on the Kansas University campus.

“I have a delivery scheduled for June 30,” Bruner says. “I’ve told her not to be late.”

Who knows whether she’ll comply? Bruner — who began his practice in Lawrence in 1977 — figured out long ago that convenient timing wasn’t the calling card of this profession. A birthday each year reminds him of that. During the delivery of his wife’s second child, Bruner was overseeing the delivery of twins elsewhere — despite the best efforts of his wife, Kathy.

“I saw the woman out and about a few days earlier, and I told her she was supposed to be on bed rest,” Kathy says. “I knew if she was in labor the same time I was, I knew where Steve would be.”

But it all worked out, and it was much better than the delivery of their first child. Bruner was in a Pittsburg emergency room that day, working unsuccessfully to save a young boy who had become trapped in an icy pond.

There are many other stories to tell of deliveries. In the early years, Brunner delivered 10 to 20 babies per month. When the practice added partners, it was closer to five to 10 per month, and now it is down to two or three. I could tell you more stories from those deliveries, but some of them involve placentas and such, and it is difficult for me to write and faint at the same time.

There’s really only one story to tell about why Bruner is giving it up.

“Delivering babies is one of the most fun things you can do in medicine,” Bruner said. “It is one of the easiest, and it is one of the best reimbursed. I couldn’t figure out why you would ever want to stop doing it. Now that I’m this age, I understand: Sleep. I don’t function as well anymore without sleep.

“I will miss delivering babies. I still really enjoy it, especially if they could all come between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.”

There’s a lot Bruner will miss. The same nurse, Jan Potts, has assisted him for 35 years. Patients have stuck with him for generations, in some cases.

“There’s a lot of second-generation ones, and I can think of a third-generation one,” Bruner says.

There’s also lots of memories of change.

“I don’t know if I’ve learned so much about people or just about how much they have changed,” Bruner says.

Back in the early days of the practice he remembers having to “basically blackmail mothers” to use a car seat. The same goes with breastfeeding. At one point, the only reason many mothers would breastfeed is because they couldn’t afford the formula.

It is not just the patients who have changed. Doctors have had to change as well. Think of computers, privacy acts, managed care and countless other items that have given many doctors a major case of heartburn. Don’t count Bruner among that bunch, though.

“I am a better doctor because of the changes that have occurred around me,” Bruner says. “But I have doctors tell me that they tell their kids not to go into medicine. I begged my kids to go into medicine. I just think it is the greatest profession in the world. We’re not underpaid. We’re probably overpaid given the joy that we get.”

That’s why Bruner, 68, decided not to retire. He says he wasn’t looking to leave his practice, but was presented an unexpected opportunity. He’s overseen a few of those in his career. A baby is often the greatest change many will ever experience in a lifetime. He’s seen how positive change can be. Maybe that is why he didn’t flinch when the chance to change jobs came about, even though he was nervous about having to interview for a job for the first time in about 40 years.

Then the interview came, and he realized something: Of the panel of 10 people interviewing him, he had delivered three of them.

“I guess it didn’t hurt,” Bruner says.

One more piece of evidence that Dr. Bruner’s sleepless nights have paid off.

— Each Sunday, Lawhorn’s Lawrence focuses on the people, places or past of Lawrence and the surrounding area. If you have a story idea, send it to Chad at clawhorn@ljworld.com.