A new physician assistant and her family have chosen Kimball for their new home.
Lisa Smith-Schohl, PA-C, will begin seeing patients at Kimball Health Services next week, joining fellow PAs Joann Bourlier-Childress and Gayle Perkins and doctors Richard Jay, DO and Jim Plate, MD.
A native of the suburban Great Lakes area, Schohl, (pronounced “shoal”), says she’s anxious to get started with building relationships with patients and staff at the Kimball hospital and clinic. After growing up in Milwaukee, studying medicine near Chicago and practicing in a nearby suburban medical center for 6 1⁄2 years, Schohl says she’s ready for the change of pace Kimball offers and the chance to get to know the patients she’ll serve.
Her description of working in the emergency room of a Wisconsin medical center conjures images from television shows like “ER” or “Grey’s Anatomy.” It was a fast pace, and patient loads of more than 100 per day for two practitioners wasn’t uncommon. Everything from cardiac chest pain to pediatrics to gynecology was the norm.
More recently, Schohl says she enjoyed the occasional chance to also fill in for on-call doctors at Oak Creek Family Medicine in Geneva, Ill., when she wasn’t in the emergency room at nearby Mercy Health Systems. A lot of times, patients would ask if she could be their regular doctor.
“It was nice to hear, because I’d never heard that before. I’d have to tell them no, I can’t do that. I like the fact that I can work in the ER (in Kimball), which is what my base is, and also do family practice in the clinic. It will be nice to build a rapport with people.”
She has a special interest in pediatrics and sports medicine. It follows that she and her husband David are interested in running, bike riding, hiking and weight lifting, among other sports.
Their new home in Kimball will also be a pleasant change for David, who plans to do some independent contract marketing work and will occasionally travel to Scottsbluff. He’ll be leaving a daily commute of about five hours a day in Wisconsin for a chance to spend more time at home with the couple’s sons, Kaden (3) and Ben (2).
“I like the small town atmosphere and how people are reassuring that it’s a great place to raise kids, it’s a great school system and how there’s no problem with talking to your neighbors,” Lisa Schohl said. “In my area, everyone is just very independent and those kinds of personal relationships just aren’t there.”
But in touring Kimball in October and meeting the staff at the hospital and clinic, Schohl says she and David saw something different.
“Everyone was just beyond friendly, shaking hands, introducing themselves, saying ‘thank you for coming,’” she said. “I think the community resonates in this facility.”
Aside from Kimball Health Services, there were several things about Kimball that made a definite impression on her and her husband. Most of them – if not all -- were good, she said with a laugh.
“We went to (the Kimball-Mitchell) football game and you guys had like eight inches of snow,” she remembered. “We had light coats and sat out there and froze.”
“But you also had that soup supper under the stadium, and that was really neat.”
It’s no secret that with today’s shortage of healthcare providers, the Schohls had plenty of communities to choose from.
“There was another community in Kansas that we looked at, but it was like four hours from a major city,” Lisa said. “Here, Cheyenne is only an hour away and Scottsbluff is only 40 minutes. The mountains are nearby. Aside from those back east, you’re basically near every national park within 10 hours. The location is convenient to almost everything.”
Kimball Health Services plans to host an open house in February to welcome the Schohl family to Kimball.
