Approximately 2,500 people are about to lose their doctor.

That’s how many active patients are under the care of Dr. Mathias Weitz.

Weitz, who’s been practicing medicine in Oxford for 36 years, is retiring on May 18.

“I’m close to 70 years old. It’s time,” he said. “It was a very, very difficult decision for me to make.”

That’s because to Weitz, the people he treats aren’t just patients or a collection of files. They’re cherished friends. They’re extended family.

“As I’ve told all my patients, I miss them already,” he said. “Some of these people I’ve known, literally, since 1980.”

Weitz practices at the McLaren Oakland medical facility (385 N. Lapeer Rd.). He’s been there since it opened in 1980, but back then, it was owned and operated by Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital, commonly known as POH.

Weitz started there as an emergency/urgent care doctor.

He did that for about four years before realizing he wanted to get to know his patients and build lasting relationships with them, not just “treat’em and street’em.”

“I liked the idea of talking to families and establishing a rapport with them,” he said. “I liked the idea of seeing the kids.”

Weitz became board-certified in family medicine and began building a successful family practice.

“It was really easy to form the practice,” he explained. “More and more people were moving to this community at that time and a lot of them were looking for family doctors. It was a great match. I loved it. It’s been an extremely fulfilling career for me.”

In some cases, Weitz has ended up caring for three generations of the same family.

“I don’t think I’ve got a fourth generation yet,” he said. “I could be wrong. But I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve been out here that long.”

Being a small-town doctor definitely had its moments.

Weitz recalled the time he was asked to conduct a “couple physicals” involving student athletes at Oxford High School.

It turned out about 200 kids were waiting to see him.

“I almost fell off my chair,” he said. “It was just a tremendously long line of kids. I thought we’d never get through them.”

One of the things that’s made Weitz such a successful and popular doctor is his attentive and friendly bedside manner.

He’s always been very careful not to talk over his patients’ heads or worse, talk down to them.

“Forget about the fact that you’re a doctor. Treat people like human beings,” Weitz said.

When he walks into the exam room, he immediately sits down and starts chatting with his patients about what’s going on with them and their families.

“I think that’s very important,” he said. “I have found that if you listen to people, if you pay attention to them, most people tell you what’s wrong with them.”

That personal touch is especially important, Weitz said, when it comes to treating people who are hurting either physically or psychologically.

“Your job as a family practitioner is to listen and try to help,” he said. “You have to have compassion.”

It may seem hard to believe, but Weitz wasn’t one of those kids who grew up dreaming of becoming a doctor.

He didn’t find his true calling until later in life.

After he graduated from Western Michigan University in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Weitz became a teacher. He spent a couple years in the Warren Consolidated school district before he got pink-slipped.

In his search for a new path in life, Weitz spent two years in law school before deciding that wasn’t the profession for him.

Weitz landed a job as an orderly at a small hospital in Detroit. He moved up the ladder and became an inhalation therapist.

A young doctor he befriended at the hospital suggested to Weitz that he go into medicine because he seemed “good at it.”

“That’s what led me to my career,” he said. “Medicine was my passion.”

Weitz received his medical degree from Michigan State University in 1979 and did his residency at POH in Pontiac.

That’s where he learned the hospital was building a facility in Oxford. After visiting the area, he knew Oxford was where he wanted to work. And he’s never regretted it.

“The community’s been great to me,” Weitz said.

To all the young people out there contemplating their futures, Weitz advises them to “Follow your dreams.” Personal experience has taught him any obstacle can be overcome.

He was born in Austria into a poor, farming family following World War II. When he was 8 years old, he and his family came to the United States in search of a better life.

“Didn’t speak a word of English,” he noted.

But Weitz studied hard, worked even harder and today, he is retiring a successful, respected and beloved physician.

“If I can do it, anybody can do it,” he said.

Weitz is in the process of moving from Oxford, which has been his home since 2004, to Grand Haven on the west side of the state.

He is looking forward to spending more time with his wife Catherine, a retired registered nurse, and going for walks in the woods with her.