Martin County Star Newsmakers
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Martin County Star Newsmakers
Rural Healthcare Revival
Oh, there we go.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's on now.
Speaker 1:If you hit the start button, it seems to work better. Hey, good morning everybody. This is Mike with the Martin County Stars Newsmakers podcast, and I've got with me today Dr Timothy Bockenberg. I say that correctly.
Speaker 2:Yes, you do.
Speaker 1:Okay, because you know I have trouble.
Speaker 2:Bockenberg is German for stream in the mountain.
Speaker 1:Stream in the mountains. I have Dr Stream in the Mountains with me today. We've known each other a long time. He goes back about maybe 15, 17 years. He was my doctor for a long time and he retired on me and now he's back. And now he's back. Dr Backeberg, you're kind of heading up this clinic here in Tremont. It's been kind of a long haul, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not really heading it up, but yeah, I'm going to be there when Wyndham is there, okay, and Wyndham is going to start out with. Wyndham is going to start out with specialists coming over and specialist and nurse practitioners on Monday, tuesday and Thursdays. They're going to have Dr Kamlitz and her colleague in general surgery most likely coming to see patients, coming to see patients, and then they're going to have Lori Fett, who is a nurse practitioner who does urology, is going to also be here.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what kind of services are they going to offer?
Speaker 2:They're going to offer general surgery services and.
Speaker 1:Right here in our little clinic.
Speaker 2:Well, they'll do outpatient procedures so they'll be able to do skin removals, lesion removals.
Speaker 1:They'll be able to do skin removals lesion removals.
Speaker 2:They'll be able to do preoperative evaluations for any type of general surgery procedures. So Dr Kamlitz had worked at Fairmont Mayo for a long time and so there's a lot of patients that she did colonoscopies on. Oh, okay, people will be able to do a colonoscopy follow-up or get scheduled for their colonoscopies, and with colonoscopies they are recommending that that start at 45, age 45. And so if you're 45, you're going to need that for screening for colon cancer, and so she could do those types of things. She could see you in evaluation. She won't do the colonoscopy there, no, but she would check things out and explain the procedure to you and then she would take the procedure back to Schedule it, schedule it in Wyndham.
Speaker 1:Back in Wyndham? Yeah, okay, well, I mean it sounds like they could have a lab there Back in Wyndham.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, well, I mean it sounds like they're going to have a lab there. There's going to be a lab there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so they can go ahead and take blood work and such.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at first the lab will probably drop a lot and take the blood work back to Wyndham to be processed and urinalyses. There'll be some what are called wave labs that'll be able to be done there, most likely to I'm not sure exactly what. They will be able to tell you that better than I will, because it's.
Speaker 1:But that's their thing, yeah yeah and uh.
Speaker 2:They've told me I can schedule people for routine, routine fasting labs okay all right. Blood pressure pressure and diabetes and high cholesterol types of problems.
Speaker 1:This is going to be really good for the community because you know, if somebody's just got a cold or something and it just doesn't feel well, they can just drop into the clinic here rather than drive clearly into Fairmont or Wyndham or wherever. When you don't feel well, that's the last thing you want to do is go for a drive. Yeah.
Speaker 2:My clinics will be in the morning on Monday, tuesday and Thursday when they're here, okay, and those will be by appointment through my. I'll have a telephone number that Mike will share with you later, and so you just call that number up and then we'll have appointments. I'll see appointments people for general things like blood pressure and diabetes and whatever. But on the day of the, if you're sick that day, you certainly can call and I'd be happy to help you that day if I'm available. Sure, sure, but being semi-retired, like Mike said, I'm doing more vacationing than I did before.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, there's nothing wrong with that either.
Speaker 2:No, last week we took my little 11-year-old to dig diamonds in Arkansas and you got a big one, did you? He didn't find a diamond, but we did find some very pretty gemstones there you go. At the Trader Diamond State.
Speaker 1:Well, it's worth the trip either way, it was very good.
Speaker 2:He enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was really hot though in Arkansas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, arkansas can get kind of— I would recommend it, yeah, and it was really hot, though, in Arkansas. Yeah, arkansas can get kind of.
Speaker 2:I would recommend it in August.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can get a little muggy down there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very, it was about 95 to 105. Yeah, it was about, I would say, 70 to 80% humidity. Yeah, that's a little nasty yeah it was, but it's the eighth largest diamond reserve.
Speaker 1:Is it really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, eighth largest diamond reserve, is it really?
Speaker 1:yeah, the diamond crater uh state park. Down there it's 37 and a half acres, okay, so it's, it's a go, just not in august, right gotcha yeah, okay, there was a guy from stewardville, a couple of brothers from stewardville.
Speaker 2:They're farmers and heavy equipment operators over there and, um, they collect a lot of stones and it was in the newspaper that they had gotten a 3.8 carat diamond down there. They go three times a year. Wow, they go three times a year. And when they aren't farming and when they aren't doing—.
Speaker 1:So if they find that, do they get to keep it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get to keep it. Wow, yeah, you have to pay—if you're an adult, you have to pay like $15 to go into it and for kids it's $7.50. The lady that was one of the ladies at the visitor center said that about one in 200 people find a diamond. Really Okay, yeah, and most of the diamonds aren't. You know, they're not big.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:But there has been huge diamonds taken out of there.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, it's the adventure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. You know, it's an old volcano that erupted over 150 million years ago. Did you get a T-shirt? My kid did yeah.
Speaker 1:That's why I go on vacation is to get T-shirts. Yeah, yeah, all right. So now, when does the clinic kick off? You told me earlier.
Speaker 2:They're going to open next Monday, on the 25th Monday, yeah. So yeah, any time the 25th you can call. Start making appointments, appointments yeah, I need to still talk to them. I have had a number of my patients calling and talking, and so I'm going to have to call them up here shortly to get appointments for next week.
Speaker 1:Tell them you're ready to go. Let's do this.
Speaker 2:It's an extension of my house calls practice.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say. You're still seeing patients at the Ridge and then here in Seasons too, do you not?
Speaker 2:I haven't been seeing patients at Seasons. Oh, you haven't okay, I know that there's been some discussions that maybe I should do that, but that's not something I've talked to them about. Oh okay, People in the community. There are some people in the community that would like me to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:But we need to talk to the people in the NIH seasons before I do something like that Sure, of course. And but no, it's mainly been at temperate secretion.
Speaker 1:Some house calls in Jackson County and Martin County we were talking about that a minute ago and I didn't realize. Doctors were still making house calls. That's a nice feature well, that's fun.
Speaker 2:You know, the people that I've been patients with that have been my patients for a long time, and my one patient, he's really. He's a lot of fun and it's normally we have. He'll, he'll make me some tea and tea and then there's a, there's some something cooked and then we, we, but we check is check the things we need to check Sure.
Speaker 1:We fill the medications. Okay. So a little adage an apple a day keeps a doctor away, Is that true?
Speaker 2:We don't eat apples.
Speaker 1:Candy brought me an apple the other day. I was just sitting here working and she goes here. She brought me a piece of fruit and an apple and I thought about that. I thought, yep, no doctor today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Maybe apple crisp, maybe apple crisp.
Speaker 1:I had a nurse ask me a couple of months ago. She said, mike, do you eat a lot of fruit? I said, do fig newtons count? She gave me a terrible look. She said no. I said well, nottons count. She gave me a terrible look. He said no. I said well, not as much as you think. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I should eat, I know, two servings of fruit a day and five servings of, and the fresher the better. If you're going to do two servings of fresh fruit and five servings of fresh vegetables, Okay, so here's my question then A serving, what's a serving size then?
Speaker 1:Is it an apple, one apple, a serving?
Speaker 2:One apple would be a serving, one banana, one orange or one pear.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm good, we do that pretty much every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then a serving of a side salad, that would be a serving Now that there's all these fresh vegetables available. Tomatoes, you know a couple of tomatoes would probably be a serving. Small, depending a large tomato, that would be one serving. Obviously, sure, fresh tomato. Cucumbers, you know a cucumber salad, or like half of a small cucumber, would be considered a dessert. Green beans yeah, you know a handful of cherry tomatoes.
Speaker 1:Oh, those are great. Yeah, very good yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're really good for you.
Speaker 1:We've got some growing on a vine behind the place, and that last windstorm about a month ago boy, it knocked it over, broke it. It's not producing like it was, but still, though, they're good.
Speaker 2:Well there's. You know. It's fortunate for Trimont that they have the town center. There's fresh vegetables available in there. That's unusual for a lot of little towns in Minnesota. Yeah, that's true, or in any part of rural America, and we have probably some of the most productive and wonderful agricultural land in the world in Martin County.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2:And so if people want a garden, they can certainly produce about anything they want and about as much as they want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I shared with somebody the other day. I grew up in the city not the cities, but in a city, wichita, kansas, and you know that's farmland down there, but not in the city. I didn't even know anybody who had a garden in their backyard as a kid growing up.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not as great of a farmland down there either. Well, okay, my mom is backyard as a kid growing up. Well, that's not as great of a farmland down there either.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, my mom is from.
Speaker 2:My mom was born in ashland, kansas. Oh yeah, 105 years ago actually wow this week and she was the eighth of 12 kids and ashland is red hills. The, the Red Hill you know in southwest Kansas just by Dodge City Yep and they can grow wheat.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then like down in Arkansas and Mississippi and Georgia that's, there's not much topsoil down there, right, I mean, you know, I mean my friends in Mississippi. They can have a garden, but they have to have a raised garden and have compost in it. When I went to visit them, there was new construction going on near the lake that they lived on. And when you strip down to build a house here, if you do that, there's weeds growing in the— but they strip the six inches of topsoil in those pine forests and it gets down to that red clay and nothing— there's nothing there.
Speaker 2:Nothing, no weed was even growing there, and so it's not very productive. It's not, as it's not wonderfully productive, as like our land here.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You put seeds in here and you know we've had beautiful rains this this summer and the crops look just gorgeous. Yeah, they do.
Speaker 1:Danelle got a little too much rain the other day but Mm-hmm, but otherwise, yeah, all right. So starting Monday they can start making calls, or actually they can start making calls probably now. Well, probably not oh okay, not quite, yet Not quite.
Speaker 2:But on Monday for sure. For sure, okay, yeah, because yeah, we're going to be gone this weekend.
Speaker 1:And you'll be there Monday, Tuesdays, Thursdays.
Speaker 2:I'll be there Monday, Tuesday and Thursday in the morning, In mornings, only In the morning yeah, yeah, okay, and then Wyndham Health will be staffing otherwise. Yeah, wyndham Health's going to be there, right, I'm just basically there when Wyndham Health is there.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see Okay, but they'll still be there, even when you're not.
Speaker 2:They told me that they were. Yeah, Wednesday, yeah, If I'm gone, if I have to go to a conference or if I'm on vacation or something, they'll be there with their specialists. Their specialists are going to be there.
Speaker 1:And their specialists go through that for me one time.
Speaker 2:They're going to have general surgery with either Dr Kamlitz or their new general surgeon Okay, Another general surgeon and then they're going to have urology with Lori Fett who's? A nurse practitioner.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, well, sounds good and I'll get that number to the folks here when we check it for sure. That sounds good. All right, all right. Well, dr Bockenberg, it's been good having you today. Thank you so much for stopping in. I'm looking forward to the clinic in Trimont. It's really going to be a boost for TrMob. We need more activity like this here.
Speaker 2:I think it'll be good.
Speaker 1:I agree. So thank you for taking that venture on. I know you're getting close to saying goodbye adios for the last time.
Speaker 2:Well, one reason we wanted to partner with Mike Ward and I wanted to partner with Wyndham is that we wanted to have somebody who would keep going well after I retire.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's a good choice.
Speaker 2:I'm going to retire, which is going to be a while, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's a good choice. So thank you so much. All right, folks, that's it with Dr Wackenberg here at the Newspaker's Podcast and we'll be back in a minute. All right, just checked with Dr Wachenberg and that number to the clinic is 507-236-0040. And you can start calling that anytime. Start setting up your appointments. They open Monday. Monday, folks, it's so nice to have Dr Wachenberg with me today. Also, it's been good being here and tell you what.
Speaker 1:We've got lots going on. The fair just ended. We've got lots going on, uh, the fair just ended. We've got an issue coming out, um, well, actually today, and that issue has all kinds of fair pictures. Next week's issue we'll have a lot more, uh, some of the results. Okay, so check out both of them and you see how you place. Uh, I'll tell you what, though don pot off. I know don nice, nice and she flat cleaned up at the fair. She won so many awards it's not even funny, but so, anyway, congratulations to all of our fair winners and we look forward to maybe we can get a couple of the fair winners on. That'd be nice.
Speaker 1:Also, sports starting up. Tonight there's a volleyball game and let me see the first football game. August 29th Friday night, the 29th, so another week or so and then, yeah, I guess that's next week, isn't it? And that's an away game, the first home game. They have a tailgate party coming here shortly and I'm looking forward to that. They'll be playing locally in Tremont at the stadium here in Tremont, the football field, so we're looking forward to that. They'll be playing locally in Trimont at the stadium here in Trimont football field. So we're looking forward to all those things. It should be a fun fall and I'm looking forward to being involved with that.
Speaker 1:Listen, by the way, if you are into sports and you like to cover sports, give me a call. My number is 507-848-3261, because I could use help with my sports, sports writing and such. I only have so much time and I have lots of sports to cover, so I could use a sports reporter. If you're interested, give me a call. All right, we can talk. All right, other than that, folks have a great week and I'll talk to you later. Bye.
