Dr. Clark Green, longtime Texarkana pediatrician, dies at 66

Dr. Robert Clark Green, a pediatrician who cared for Texarkana children for more than 36 years, died Oct. 26 while in Maui, Hawaii, according to his obituary from Texarkana Funeral Home. He was 66.

Green, known as Clark to family and friends and “Papa Doc” to his grandchildren, had retired this summer from Collom & Carney Clinic. Families marked his last day at the clinic in Facebook posts on June 10, and one mother wrote that he had been her own pediatrician in 1995 before he cared for her daughter.

The obituary did not give a cause of death, and no service arrangements had been announced as of Saturday.

Generations of patients

Green was born April 14, 1960, in Texarkana, Texas. Classmates remembered him this week as a member of the Arkansas Senior High School Class of 1978, where some knew him by the nickname “Red.”

He earned his medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine in 1987 and trained at University Hospital of Arkansas, according to physician directory listings. He was board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and saw patients at Collom & Carney’s main clinic on Cowhorn Creek Road.

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His family wrote that he cared for countless newborns, helped worried parents through difficult moments and watched children grow into adults with families of their own. “To his patients, he was more than a doctor,” the obituary says.

Some local families saw him for decades. One woman wrote after his retirement party that he had been her family’s doctor for 40 years and was always willing to spend as much time as a visit needed. When word of his death spread this week, former patients posted that he had treated them as children and later treated their own kids.

Ashley Gardner, who worked alongside Green, wrote on Facebook that he left an impression that stayed with her long after they stopped working together.

“He wasn’t just an incredible physician, he was a genuinely good person who cared deeply about his patients, their families, and the people around him,” Gardner wrote. “In a world where healthcare can sometimes feel so impersonal, Dr. Green was a reminder of what medicine should be about. He didn’t just care for patients, he cared about people.”

Green is survived by Shannon, his wife of 29 years (“or 356 months as Clark loved to count,” the obituary says); his children, Laura Orr and her husband, David; Emily Musgrove and her husband, Clint; and Hunter Green and his wife, McKenzie; seven grandchildren; and three siblings, Kimi Langford, Gary Green and Ronnie Green.

The obituary also describes a man who loved to travel and who never hesitated to tell people he loved them.

The family asked people who want to do something in his honor to try small kindnesses: leave a big tip, buy someone’s lunch, be generous when no one is watching and tell someone you love them.

“That would make Papa Doc smile,” the family wrote.

The full obituary is available on TXKtoday.