By Kyle Kuphal
Dr. Nicholas Harms, MD, and Dr. Brooke Harms, DO, started seeing patients at Pipestone County Medical Center and Family Clinic on Monday, July 21.
Dr. Brooke Harms, 33, is a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Dr. Nicholas Harms, 31, is a general surgeon. Discussions between Avera McKennan, PCMC and the doctors began about two years ago, with the husband and wife signing contracts about a year ago.
“It’s great to finally be here,” Dr. Nicholas Harms said.
The two moved to Pipestone in early July from Lansing, Mich. Most of their time so far has been spent organizing and unpacking, but Dr. Brooke Harms said their first impression of Pipestone is that the people are “very welcoming.”
“We’ve been greeted by all the neighbors and we’ve gotten a lot of baked goods and dinners,” she said. “It’s been really nice.”
The Drs. Harms accepted their respective positions at PCMC due in part to the fact that Dr. Nicholas Harms is a native of Dell Rapids, S.D. His parents still live in Dell Rapids and his younger brother lives between Jasper and Dell Rapids.
“We originally started looking close to Nick’s home to be close to family and we really wanted to be in a rural location,” Dr. Brooke Harms said. “I really like being in a rural location because you get to broaden your specialty a little. It’s not so sub-specialized. You get to be a part of many different things for the patients and have, I feel, a closer relationship with them.”
The couple also wanted to raise their family in a small town. That family started about 11 months ago with the addition of their son, Cason.
Dr. Nicholas Harms said the two visited Pipestone last year when they were considering the positions and were impressed by what the medical center and the community had to offer, including the schools, the historic downtown district, and “state of the art” equipment at PCMC.
“With our modern training and the equipment they have here, people will be able to have access to every bit of state-of-the-art treatment that they could get anywhere,” Dr. Nicholas Harms said. “That really struck me when we visited as something that we could build on.”
After graduating from high school in Dell Rapids Dr. Nicholas Harms attended college at the University of Nebraska and South Dakota State University, where he earned an undergraduate degree before earning his medical degree at the University of South Dakota in 2009, and completing his residency in general surgery through Michigan State University at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Mich. and McLaren Regional Medical Center in Flint, Mich. this year.
Dr. Brooke Harms is a native of Alma, Mich. a city of just over 9,000 people. She earned an undergraduate degree at Central Michigan University, and a medical degree at Michigan State University, College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2009, and completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Sparrow Hospital in 2013. She then worked at Sparrow Hospital for a year, teaching medical students and training residents, while her husband completed his residency.
Dr. Nicholas Harms will work with Dr. K. Theodore Devaraj, MD, seeing all new patients and gradually taking over the surgical specialties clinic at PCMC until Dr. Devaraj retires Oct. 31 after 21 years with PCMC.
Dr. Brooke Harms fills two long-time PCMC goals: The additions of an obstetrics and gynecology specialty clinic and a female doctor to the staff. She said being a woman adds a helpful component to caring for women’s health.
“I want to be able to offer an empathic approach to obstetrics and gynecology,” she said. “I think patients have already been getting very good obstetric care here, but there is a gynecologic aspect that’s been lacking and I’m very excited to bring in a lot of new surgical opportunities for women.”
Those opportunities will allow some high-risk patients who have previously been transferred to Sioux Falls, S.D. to receive care locally.
Dr. Brooke Harms’ office is located in the former Ashton Care building and Dr. Nicholas Harms is working in the existing surgical clinic office until the new specialty clinics are added as part of PCMC’s upcoming expansion project.
The dentist
By Debra Fitzgerald
As someone who grew up in a family
Since late spring he’s been practicing those skills as he transitions from his life in the Twin Cities to Pipestone, where he has joined All About Smiles as a new dentist.
The move to rural Minnesota has been “a very big change for me,” said Dr. Hatch, 34. “It’s definitely different here.”
A trade-off has been the amenities offered in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, which supports some 3.28 million people, versus the amenities offered in Pipestone, which supports a population of 4,196 ?specifically, restaurants.
“One of our favorite pastimes was going out to eat and trying out new restaurants,” said the Minneapolis native about he and wife, Minhthu.
But a large offering of restaurants wasn’t enough to keep the new graduate from investigating the opportunity at All About Smiles. He and his wife toured Pipestone, liked what they saw and decided to move to rural Minnesota. Since then he has discovered advantages rural living has over big-city life.
“It’s nice being five minutes away from everything and it’s nice not having rush-hour traffic,” he said. In addition to the slowed-down pace, he’s felt welcomed, comfortable and friendliness. “Everyone seems to say hello when you walk past them on the street. It’s just so much more friendly here. I very much like it.”
The biggest challenge to his adaptation of small-town living has been the miles separating him and his family. After working Monday through Thursday at the Main Street dental office, Dr. Hatch commutes to St. Paul to spend the long weekend with his wife and their 11-month-old son, Benjamin.
“I’m commuting it, but I’m not liking it too much,” he said. “I’m looking forward to them being here,” which is expected to happen by the end of the summer, he said. His wife will leave her job as a manufacturing technician at UTC Aerospace in Minneapolis, but will bring a job with her ?she and Dr. Hatch have their own mail order hearing aid repair business.
Though Dr. Hatch graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry, his career path almost took a different turn. As an undergraduate, he received a bachelor’s degree in plant science, agronomy and plant genetics, not pre-med.
“What’s funny is I was planning on being a dentist the whole time; from the minute I started college I knew I wanted to be a dentist,” he said. “But very few of the applicants get accepted into dental school. So they said have a good backup plan.”
That backup plan hooked him on genetic engineering, but his heart was still in dentistry. So he applied to both programs at the University of Minnesota ?it’s school of dentistry and it’s Ph.D program in plant breeding/molecular genetics. He was accepted into both.
“It wasn’t a hard choice,” he said. “I really wanted to be a dentist.”
His decision to be a dentist, a specific choice born from a general desire to help people, was solidified following a visit to his wife’s native country, Vietnam.
“We went to a small village where she grew up,” he said. “That’s where I saw firsthand what having a complete lack of access to dentistry can do to somebody’s life. It’s much more than just having ugly teeth or even painful teeth. There’s social components and malnutrition components and these people are truly suffering because they can’t see a dentist and that’s when I decided that this is how I want to help people.”
He was attracted to general dentistry for the opportunity it provides to “do everything and get to know my patients.” He described his chair-side manner as “laid back.”
“I just want to push oral health and healthy mouths and beautiful smiles,” he said.
Dr. Hatch is technically an associate dentist with a one-year contract, but he sees himself in Pipestone well beyond that period of time.
“There’s a very good chance I’ll be partial owner in this clinic until I retire,” he said. “Which is a very long time away.”
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