Rep. Paul DeWeese, R-Williamston

People turn to state Rep. Paul DeWeese, R-Williamston, for all kinds of relief. Some ask him to improve their children’s education, while others seek help in overcoming burdensome government regulations. Still more want him to stitch up wounds.

DeWeese, 44, can oblige them all. He transforms himself, sometimes daily, into seemingly different people.

State legislators know him as one of them. Hospitals know him as an emergency room physician. Critics and would-be reformers of the state’s public education system consider him one of their top leaders.

He is the founder of Teach Michigan, which seeks to make school systems more responsive to parents and encourage alternatives to traditional K-12 school districts.

DeWeese, a native of Grand Haven, has followed different drummers for a long time. At 19, he swam across the Straits of Mackinac with his sister and father in a Red Cross fund-raiser.

He was president of his Wayne State University medical school sophomore class. The next year, he was president of the school’s Student Council.

As a young physician, DeWeese doctored for months in Pakistan and the Ivory Coast in West Africa. He said he worked with Mother Teresa for one month in Calcutta, India. In 1977, he spent three moths in Taiwan, teaching English to Chinese students.

"He’s a remarkable man. He has the vision to unite people and bring people together," said Dr. Jack Clarkson ... who worked with him in Eaton Rapids for years. ...

DeWeese said his pursuits have a unity of purpose. "I really have this passion to be a catalyst for change, to make a difference in people’s lives," he said.

... DeWeese, the son of a nurse, served his residency in Grand Rapids from 1981 to 1985 and worked in Lansing and Eaton Rapids before taking a job at McLaren Health Center’s emergency room in the early 1990s.

He gravitated toward emergency medicine because it allowed him to work nights and free his days for other activities. He was director of emergency medicine in an Eaton Rapids hospital for five years.

DeWeese worked full time at Memorial Healthcare Center in Owosso from 1992 to 1998. He still works shifts on most weekends despite having been elected to the state House in 1998. He also continues to work part time at Eaton Rapids while representing most of Livingston County and half of Ingham County.

DeWeese, the father of three boys ages 10 through 16, said public education became a focal point for him because of discussions with Detroiters while he lived there as a student.

The closing of a parochial school operated by the Episcopal church at which he worshipped, forced children into public schools, DeWeese said.

"(Students) were then displaced into a local public school that was a devastating failure," he said. "The lights went out in the kids’ lives."

... DeWeese founded Teach Michigan in the late 1980s to "be a catalyst educating the public" that parents should have a stronger voice in their children’s schooling. He remains its board chairman. The organization has championed charter schools, tax credits for private school tuition, the ability to enroll children in other school districts and vouchers for private schools.

DeWeese is working on the creation of a "virtual charter school" for children of migrant workers. ... He also is credited with creating the Medical Access Project in Ingham County in the late 1980s. The effort combined volunteer help from about 350 physicians, all four Lansing hospitals and the Red Cross to provide free and reduced-price medical care for the needy.

... He has an eye on the seat held by state Sen. Mike Rogers, R-Howell, who was considered a leading Republican contender for the congressional seat held by Rep. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing.

Donald Edwards, director of the Memorial Healthcare Center emergency department, said DeWeese is the only physician-legislator he knows.

"...some of us ... had activities outside of the emergency department, but most of it is related to medicine," Edwards said. "He’s truly the first person that has a whole separate career unrelated to medicine.

... Eileen Howe, an emergency room nurse at Memorial, said DeWeese is "always self-conscious about costs for patients. And that’s rare for doctors to be concerned about." She said he suggests ways for people to save money, such as renting crutches instead of buying them.

Registered nurse Jaime Arndt said DeWeese "almost always writes down (his patients’) address and sends them a card. ... Every patient that he sees, he touches." ...