Dr. James Powell will resign from Medical Associates May 24 after almost 31 years at the clinic as a family medical practioner. Powell plans to work for Avera McKennan in Sioux Falls and Flandreau, S.D. [Click to enlarge]

Powell will resign from Medical Associates next week after serving almost 31 years in the Le Mars community as a family practice doctor.

"Now that I'm 60 years of age if I'm going to do something different I better do it now," Powell said.

He will be working for Avera McKennan where he will practice medicine in an outreach clinic in Flandreau, S.D. and also work in Avera McKennan's Health Office in Sioux Falls.

"It's really exciting," Powell said. "It's going to be a little blend of seeing patients just two days a week and then working with electronic medical records the other two days, and assisting them in developing their electronic medical record program throughout their hospital and clinic system."

As Powell looks back at his career with Medical Associates which began in 1977, he has seen many positive changes in the clinic.

When he started, there was one other medical clinic in town that soon closed its doors, and leaving him and two other doctors.

In those days the three doctors saw between 40 and 50 patients a day at the clinic and close to 30 patients a day in the hospital. He also delivered about 70 babies a year, Powell said.

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"Those were very stressful days," he recalled. "It was just a different time."

Now he sees 20 to 25 patients a day, but generally those visits are more complex than when he was treating more people back in the 1970s.

Throughout his years a the clinic Powell has been instrumental in bringing positive changes to Medical Associates including fetal monitoring, which is used to monitor babies prior to and during birth.

"I taught a number of classes at night to teach nurses how to read fetal monitors," Powell said.

He also encouraged starting a cardiac evaluation and rehabilitation program and better communication between the Floyd Valley Hospital administration and Medical Associates.

"I encouraged a cooperative venture to improve patient care, to improve patient access," Powell said.

Now he's ready to move on to Avera McKennan and possibly make some changes there.

Powell said he has been contracting with Avera Health the last couple of years and they called him about coming full time last summer.

"My first reaction was 'Ah forget it. I'm not going anywhere,'" Powell said.

But having made the decision to leave Medical Associates, he is looking forward to learning new things and ridding his life of the stress associated with seeing patients on a daily basis.

"There will be some challenges with it and yet an opportunity to learn some new and exciting things and take away some of the day to day stress," Powell said. "There will still be stress, just not the same kind of stress."

Powell thinks it's Medical Associates forward progress in being one of the first to implement a electronic medical records program six years ago as one of the reasons for Avera's interest in him.

"We're probably one of the 5 percent of the offices across the country that has fully implemented electronic medical records," Powell said. "For that reason Avera Health came to look at our system and evaluated what we have been doing over the last few years."

In addition to serving the Le Mars community since the 1970s, Powell has also been treating patients in Marcus throughout the years. Currently he goes there every two weeks.

Powell said his parents grew up in Marcus so he still has many relatives living there.

"It's a tremendous community," he said.

Although he won't be practicing medicine in Iowa any more, Powell said he and wife, Christina, who is a also a nurse at Medical Associates, plan to keep their home in Le Mars in addition to living in Sioux Falls. Christina will also look for a job in Sioux Falls. Between them the couple has seven children and nine grandchildren.

"We'll stay there during the week and come here for three-day weekends," Powell said.

Powell said he will miss the people he's worked with for many years.

"We just have a phenomenal staff. Some of them have been here almost as long as I have," Powell said. "We're a pretty close-knit group. That's going to be very difficult."

An open house honoring Powell will be from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with a program at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 22 in the conference center at Floyd Valley Hospital. The public is invited.