For 40 years now, David Hodo, the only full-time local psychiatrist, has been touching the hearts and minds of many people who have walking through his practice door. 

Hodo attended Auburn University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Tulane University, along with working at Harvard University as a senior in medical school.

Although Hodo said he enjoys his profession now, it was not what he saw himself doing to begin with.

“When I was in medical school, the last thing I wanted to do was go into psychiatry. I didn’t like it at all,” Hodo said.

But after working as a student at Harvard for two months in surgery and seeing the psychiatry program there, his mind began to change.

“At Harvard at that time, psychiatry was very highly thought of, it was a very good program. Many people wanted to go into it,” Hodo said. “It was opposite of what would have been at UAB in medical school. It gave me a different idea of what I could do.”

After school, Hodo was in the Navy as a general practitioner where he also began acting as a psychiatrist.

“When I was in the Navy, it was during the Vietnam War and so there were a lot of people who were in the Navy who were having problems, or they were only in the Navy to stay out of the Army and they didn’t want to go to Vietnam,” Hodo said.

“So maybe being in the Navy and having the opportunity to talk to people about their problems seemed like it would be a pretty interesting thing to do.”

Hodo said he has enjoyed his time in Selma, and he has no plans of going anywhere anytime soon.

“It’s just a nice place to practice and to live. It’s challenging, it’s creative, it’s just a neat place to be,” Hodo said.

“My plan would be to be in practice as long as I have health that will allow me to be in practice. I would like to continue to do this for as long as my health is OK and I can do it.”