Urgent Care clinic comes to Bigfork

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

Carla Brook had an idea of just what Bigfork needed when it came to walk-in health care: Anything.

So Brook opened the Bigfork Clinic and Urgent Care behind Streeter's Corner on Jan. 7 to provide a place for people in the Bigfork area to go if they find themselves unsure of whether whatever ails them warrants a trip in to Kalispell.

In addition to the walk-in services, the clinic will focus on preventative medicine and community activities to promote wellness, Brook said.

"We want this to be a community clinic," she said. "We're doing housecalls for seniors and we're going to work with the ambulance service and Bigfork Drug to give the best service possible."

In addition to house calls, the clinic will offer free blood pressure checks any time and $25 sports physicals 365 days a year.

"We're just trying to offer things that people need," Brook said.

Brook, who is a Nurse Practitioner, has a staff of eight and will be joined in February by Matt Zamacke, a Physician's Assistant currently practicing in Maryland who specializes in orthopedics and pediatrics.

The clinic feels nothing like a doctors office and is so new it smells more like construction than sterilization. Warm colored walls and themed rooms are designed to ease patients' minds, Brook said, and provide an atmosphere that might make people more likely to come in for the check ups they need.

"Instead of making it sterile we wanted to make it homey," she said. "We want people to feel welcome here.

A women's health room features an oriental rug and pastel colors while the children's exam room boasts miniature leather chairs for the pint-sized patients and walls adorned with pictures from Bigfork Children's Playhouse productions.

Peggi Mudrickes, a nurse in the clinic who works as a cardiac nurse in Santa Rosa, Calif. eight days of each month, said she moved to Bigfork permanently in August to work in the clinic.

"This is a wonderful place to work," she said. "And I think word of mouth will spread about it because of her (Brook's) philosophy."

Part of the philosophy is to provide personal care to patients and keep the number of patients seen each day low, Brook said. She and Zamacke will schedule their appointments staggered from one another so that while one is with a scheduled patient the other is available for any walk in cases.

"We want to stay with an hour or a half hour for an appointment to give people time," she said. "We'll try not to go over that and if we do we'll get more providers."

Brook said that with her experience as well as Zamacke's they can handle many of the things that might normally send someone to Kalispell Regional Medical Center's emergency room in Kalispell. And, Brooke said, if a case warrants ER attention, they can stabilize a patient for transfer via ambulance or at the very least let someone know they're not overreacting.

For now, the clinic will be open Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays from noon to 9 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon.

For more information or to make an appointment call 837-HELP.

The clinic is located at 191 Jewel Basin Ct. Suite 2A across from the Little Brown Church on Highway 83.