Adventure Awaits Dr. Jonathan Beers in Texas County

There are a few things you should know about Jonathan Beers.

As a child, Beers enjoyed going to the doctor.

Beers also likes adventures, traveling and the outdoors.

Finally, Beers knew he wanted to find his niche in helping others.

Perhaps it’s a combination of the childhood enjoyment he found in trips to the doctor to his desire to help others that led Beers to a career in medicine.  Beers’ pursuit of adventure and the outdoors brought him to the Ozarks via Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Beers hopes that the adventures are just beginning for him as he finds his way around in Texas County and learns his new role as a physician at Texas County Memorial Hospital.

“When I went to the doctor as a kid, I thought, ‘What a cool thing to do!’” Beers said, adding, “I always saw myself as a person that would help other people.”

The youngest of seven children, Beers grew up in White Bear Lake, MN, a town north of the Twin Cities.  Although White Bear Lake was near a major metropolitan area, Beers enjoyed and preferred the intimacy of smaller communities where everyone seemed to know each other.

Beers’ first experience in small town living was at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in biology.

“I went to college thinking I would go to chiropractic school,” Beers said.  “I wanted to do something where I could work with people and help people.”

It was Beers’ mother, Diane, who learned about osteopathic physicians that are trained in manipulative medicine as part of their overall medical training, and she shared the information with her son.

“We didn’t have DOs in Minnesota, but after I heard about it, I looked into it,” Beers said referring to the doctorate of osteopathic medicine.

Turns out that Diane Beers had found the perfect combination of “hands on” and “helping people” that her youngest son was looking for in a vocation.  Even though Jonathan is an adult, Diane takes pride in the fact that her youngest son still asks for her opinion and listens when she offers advice.

Believing that he had found something that “seemed like everything I wanted to do”, Beers applied to the osteopathic medical school closest to his home in MN—Des Moines University in Iowa—where he obtained his doctorate of osteopathic medicine.

While in medical school, Beers applied for and was accepted into the National Health Service Corps program, a program that provides student loan repayment for healthcare providers that practice medicine in medically underserved areas.  As an NHSC scholar, Beers would be required to practice at an NHSC approved site after completing residency.

While in college and medical school, Beers had the opportunity to volunteer in places “where medical access is not as good as it should be”, such as Africa, Central America, Native American reservations and a Spanish-speaking outreach clinic in Des Moines.

“I knew I wanted to practice medicine in a place that was underserved,” Beers said.

In addition to wanting to work in an underserved area, Beers also figured out in medical school that he wanted to have an internal medicine practice.

“I knew early on that I wanted to practice internal medicine because I like the complexity of internal medicine,” Beers said, adding “I wanted to find out how to fix the complex conditions that people have and help improve their health.”

For an internal medicine residency program Beers again sought a close knit community which he found at Gunderson Lutheran in La Crosse, WI.

“Gunderson was one of the top residency programs for primary care training, and they had a very supportive environment,” Beers explained, noting the residents lived in housing located next to the hospital.

Gunderson Lutheran’s residency training allowed internal medicine residents to provide all of the primary care for hospitalized patients.  All of Gunderson’s physicians were employed by the hospital which created a “warm environment” in which a resident could practice and learn.

As Beers began looking for a place to practice medicine after residency, he looked at NHSC approved sites across the nation and a few NHSC approved sites in the Ozarks, too.

“I was looking for a smaller community, and my family vacationed in the Ozarks when I was kid,” Beers explained.  “I always enjoyed my time in the Ozarks.”

During his TCMH site visit last August, Beers received a warm welcome from everyone he came into contact with, including the physicians that seemed to “know each other well”.

“My visit to TCMH was well-organized, and everyone seemed genuinely interested in me,” Beers said, describing the community at TCMH as “tight-knit”.

“In looking for a practice, I knew that I wanted to get to know my patients and interact with people at work and outside of the hospital,” Beers explained.

At TCMH Beers doesn’t have to ride a donkey to get to his patients like he did when volunteering in Nicaragua.  The TCMH clinics are also vastly different than the refugee clinic Beers worked at on the Uganda/Sudan border in Africa.  But Beers still believes that practicing medicine in the Ozarks will be a new adventure to experience, too.

Beers will practice general internal medicine in the TCMH Medical Complex in Houston and in the hospital with inpatients.  Beers will offer osteopathic manipulative medicine as part of his practice to help his patients return to health or to maintain good health.

Beers has specialized interest in geriatric medicine, and while in residency, he did some specialized training in vascular medicine.  Beers will offer treatment and follow up care for patients that suffer from vascular disease, such as stroke; deep vein thrombosis; peripheral artery disease and varicose veins, to name a few forms of the disease.

Additional training in colonoscopy and stress testing are also on Beers’ list of things to learn to add to his practice repertoire at TCMH.

Beers and his girlfriend, Michelle Suchla, are settling in to the home they bought in between Licking and Houston.  Suchla, a registered nurse, is planning to work at TCMH, too.

In their free time, the couple plans to take full advantage of the adventures available in the Ozarks.  “We like hunting and fishing a lot,” Beers explained, adding that he enjoys golfing and hockey, too.

Beers and Suchla have downloaded a new hiking app on their smart phones.  “We’re looking forward to checking out all of the trails around here, too,” Beers said.

They have a chocolate Laborador, Reese, at home, and plan to add to their canine companions by adopting another dog, too.

Beers has already started seeing patients two days a week at the TCMH Family Clinic in Licking until the new full-time physician starts at TCMH next summer.

“It’s kind of like the best of both worlds,” Beers said about working at the Licking clinic in the next few weeks.

Beers is enjoying the opportunity to do a little work as a physician in the Licking clinic where he’s able to help some area patients and learn the hospital’s electronic medical records system before beginning work full-time in mid-August.

In fact, Beers may have found his niche, right here in Texas County.  After all, Beers is now the doctor, and he’s traveled to rural America where he’s found a lot of outdoors waiting to be explored.  As the new physician in the community, Beers will also have many opportunities to help others.

Beers is accepting new patients at the TCMH Medical Complex in Houston at 417/967-5435 and the TCMH Family Clinic in Licking at 573-674-3311.