McFarland Clinic PC rolled out plans for a new Jefferson clinic at a community breakfast attended by about 160 persons at the Greene County Community Center Friday morning.
The clinic will be adjacent to the new Hy-Vee grocery store on N. Wilson on the east end of the building. It is expected to open in May. The clinic will have physicians’ offices, including space for visiting specialists, a lab, and physical therapy space. The main entrance will face south, and there will be a secondary entrance directly from the Hy-Vee store.
McFarland Clinic is marking its 20th year in Jefferson this year. Of all the physicians who made the transition from the independent Jefferson Clinic to McFarland Clinic in 1994, only Dr Steve Karber is still working. He serves as the clinic’s medical director. He spoke at the breakfast, saying that he will retire in a year and that Dr Jim Gerdes will become medical director.
Karber reflected on the changes in local medical practice in 35 years. “Health care has changed. It’s changed for the better. It’s more technical and more difficult to distribute equally geographically. Rural health care is changing a lot. Some of those changes we don’t like, but we need to move forward,” he said. “We’re going to have a great relationship with Hy-Vee. We’re going to continue to provide care in the way McFarland Clinic does, and that’s one patient at a time, giving the best care we can possibly give, with a group of physicians who are dedicated to that care.”
Dr Eric Jensen, a McFarland Clinic podiatrist from Carroll who sees patients in Jefferson, said that it was “kind of a shock when we lost the lease. We had to get together rather rapidly and get something going.”
“It’s nice that we have partners here in Jefferson that we can talk and do things with,” he added.
Gerdes credited a core of specialists, including Jensen, with assuring the support of the larger McFarland Clinic. He thanked McFarland Clinic’s facilities committee for acting quickly, and he thanked six office members who, like Karber, have been with McFarland Clinic-Jefferson for 20 years. They are Connie Carstens, Kathy Geisler, Deann Ebersole, Keri Brooker, Kathy Thomsen and Luann Bohnet.
Gerdes said that in the months since they learned of the needed relocation, things have been “tense” in the office. “There have been a lot of questions that have come up, both from patients, from the physicians themselves. Unfortunately, the office members have been the ones put in between a lot of those. They’ve been asked to answer questions they didn’t have the answer for. I thank them for sticking with us and keeping a positive attitude,” he said.
“We weren’t planning on making changes a year ago today, but things happen. We’re very excited about the opportunities we’re going to have,” Gerdes said. “We’ve been here for 20 years, and hopefully we’ll be here for at least that much longer.”
Local Hy-Vee manager Lori Subbert spoke on behalf of Hy-Vee early in the 20 minute program, following a welcome by Greene County Development Corp president Chris Nation. Subbert said the new store is on schedule for completion in late February or early March.
“Hy-Vee is a company that believes in making lives easier, healthier and happier,” she said, and mentioned pharmacies, fresh produce, and the services of registered dieticians as working toward that. “Hy-Vee asked ‘what more can we do to help our customers out?’ and the answer was to put clinics next to the stores,” Subbert said.
The Jefferson store is one of the first to have an adjacent clinic. “It will make your lives easier, to go to the doctor and go next door to get your prescriptions and your healthy food… I’m excited to be here. It’s going to be a great partnership with McFarland… It’s going to be a great thing for the community.”
