Three Bothwell clinics relocating this summer

Citing goals to eliminate leased clinic space and consolidate clinics into buildings it already owns, Bothwell Regional Health Center will move three outpatient clinics to two locations this summer.

The moves run from July 20 through Aug. 3 and involve Bothwell OB/GYN Associates, Bothwell Family Medicine and Bothwell TLC Pediatrics. Patients will continue to see their current providers at the new locations.

Effective July 20, Bothwell OB/GYN Associates will move from 3401 W. 10th St. to the second floor of Bothwell’s Healing Arts Center at 3700 W. 10th St. and be renamed Bothwell Women’s Health, where obstetric and gynecologic care will continue. Patients can continue reaching the practice at 660.827.0015. 

“Keeping obstetric and gynecologic care and our hospital’s labor and delivery unit is critical,” said Lori Wightman, Bothwell CEO. “In a rural market our size, these are difficult services to sustain due to high costs. Yet this is care our community can’t afford to lose, and neither can we.”

Missouri is considered a state with a severe shortage of OB/GYN physicians, and more than 41% of its counties are classified as maternity care deserts, which are places with little or no access to maternity care. Recruiting specialists to rural communities, Wightman said, is a persistent challenge.

That challenge is shaping how Bothwell delivers obstetric care. While Bothwell continues to recruit for a full-time gynecologist, its family medicine obstetrics (FMOB) physicians — family doctors specially trained to provide prenatal care and deliver babies — also care for obstetric patients. In addition to taking care of pregnant women in clinic and performing deliveries including cesarean sections, FMOBs provide basic gynecological care as well as endometrial biopsies and colposcopies when needed. Three are on staff now, with two more joining in August. Six resident physicians in the Bothwell-University of Missouri Rural Family Medicine Residency also care for pregnant women under attending physicians.

“This is, in many ways, a return to how rural medicine has always worked,” Wightman said. “For generations, the family doctor was the one who delivered your baby. As our roster of family medicine obstetrics physicians grows, we’ve been fortunate to add that model back into our medical team, providing care from birth to end of life for patients who want that continuity.”

In a second phase of moves, two clinics and a physician from a third clinic will consolidate at 3401 W. 10th St. to provide family and pediatric care under one roof and a new name, Bothwell 10th Street Clinic. The clinic will use Bothwell Family Medicine’s current number, 660.829.8811.

Bothwell Family Medicine physicians Dr. Dalton Lohsandt and Dr. Eduard Rasputkov, currently on the third floor of the Healing Arts Center, will move July 23. Dr. Stephanie Schirding, of the Bothwell Cole Camp Clinic, will move July 28, and Bothwell TLC Pediatrics, currently in a leased building on Clinton Road, will move Aug. 3.

The clinic moves are among several steps Bothwell is taking this year to remain financially stable and independent, Wightman said.

“Our mission guides every decision we make,” she said. “Together, we work to provide compassionate and safe care to our family, friends and neighbors, while remaining proudly independent. Protecting that mission is at the heart of everything we’re doing, and these changes help ensure Bothwell stays strong and independent for this community, long into the future.”

Bothwell’s other family medicine clinics, Bothwell Family Medicine Associates located on the first floor of the Healing Arts Center, Bothwell Eldenburg Family Practice at 700 S. Hancock, Bothwell Lincoln Family Medicine in Lincoln and Bothwell Health Center-Truman Lake in Warsaw, remain in their current locations.