» Nurse practitioner arrives in Bandon

By Geneva Miller
For Bandon Western World
Thursday, November 12, 2009 | 2 comment(s) Less than a week after her arrival in Bandon, nurse practitioner Mary Anker joined the staff at Dr. Gail McClave’s practice and started treating patients. The Bandon Community Health Center is still awaiting its rural health district certification, and adding Anker to the prospective staff is a key component of the certification requirements.

BCHC public relations director Linda Olsen said she expected Anker to enjoy some down time on her arrival in Bandon, “but there’s so much to do that she just jumped right in.”

Down time for Anker typically includes running, spinning, knitting and reading. Anker says she also enjoys flower gardening and looks forward to experimental cultivation on the coast. But she says those leisure pursuits can wait. In Bandon, Anker is learning the routine at McClave’s practice and preparing for the transition from private practice to rural health clinic.

“I engross myself in my work for the first six months or so, until I get it,” said Anker. “There’s so much to learn about the rural health programs.”

BCHC is a nonprofit organization that was initiated by local residents and health professionals who were concerned about the challenges to finding and maintaining private health care practices in a community with so many retired and low income patients. McClave offered her practice as the transitional site for the new health center. Renovations to McClave’s office to accommodate the health center are almost complete.

Under the rural health certification, the BCHC should operate at a more reasonable profit margin, according to organizers. The BCHC board elected to offer care to both insured and uninsured patients at a sliding fee scale and is recruiting volunteers to help patients seek further financial assistance, especially for prescriptions. Anker started her professional career as a chemical engineer. Volunteering for a hospice organization in Santa Fe, N.M., prompted Anker’s career change.

“I liked engineering a lot intellectually, but I didn’t attach to it emotionally the same way you do taking care of people’s health,” Anker explained.

She earned her nursing degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and started practicing in 1997. While she hoped to return to the west, she elected to take a position in New York which allowed her to practice a broad range of skills in general adult practice, similar to her new position in Bandon.

Anker says she brings a high level of education, inquisitiveness and open-mindedness to her practice. In her first week, Anker saw a number of patients new to McClave’s practice. She says she prefers meeting new patients as they come to the clinic, getting to know the whole person, not a paper file. Before leaving New York, Anker received a number of positive thank you notes from patients expressing their gratitude for her professional help and care.

“It’s difficult to see people not get health care or medicine for treatable conditions because they don’t have the money, and that’s something the health center will address,” Anker said after a long day meeting with patients.

Later she added, “Money doesn’t motivate me. I’m motivated by providing good care and having people feel better.”