ABOVE: Dr. Steven Parnell is pictured in an exam room at his new practice, Integrity Medical Center in Fairmont.

FAIRMONT– “Retirement” is not a word you’ll hear associated with Dr. Steven Parnell anytime soon. The Fairmont-based physician, who will turn 70 later this year, may have sold his clinic, Dulcimer, to United Hospital District, but Parnell is now gearing up to open Integrity Medical Center in Fairmont where he will continue to meet with and assist patients with their health concerns.

Parnell grew up in Marshall and went to Southwest Minnesota State there, where he received his undergraduate degree. From there, Parnell went to Mayo Medical School in Rochester.

“Then I did residency up in Duluth for three years and I chose that because they prepare you well for practicing in rural communities. I knew I wanted to do O.B. and they trained you as a family doctor to do C-sections and things like that,” Parnell said.

He and his wife, Donna, then moved to Fairmont in 1983. Parnell’s goal was to stay in the area about five years and then go and teach in the residency program as he was encouraged to do.

“We really loved Fairmont. It was a great place to raise our five children so we ended up staying,” Parnell said.

At the time he was working at what was the Fairmont Medical Clinic, which evolved over time to the present-day Mayo Clinic Health System-Fairmont.

When asked if Parnell ever considered opening his own practice he said, “oh heavens no,” with a laugh.

However, in 2007, he and Dr. Denise Schavey decided to leave the Mayo system and founded Dulcimer Medical Center.

“It was crazy to me to start the clinic but we soon outgrew our initial place (in Victoria State Crossing) and built the place out there (1950 Center Creek Drive),” Parnell said.

Parnell said before they built the building he talked to several different people to see if they would be interested in part of the building, too. One of the people he spoke with was Dr. Jon Erickson of Fairmont Family Dentistry who at the time had an office near the Martin County Library in Fairmont.

“We partnered together in buying the land and building the building,” Parnell said.

Dulcimer continued to grow over its 16 years by adding staff and services.

“We were successful in part I believe because of our model of care in terms of hearing what the patient’s complaint is. Often times, if they come in with say a sore throat, there’s usually something else going on. The sore throat is secondary to what’s really going on,” Parnell said.

In speaking about his decision to sell to UHD, Parnell pointed out that Dulcimer was a big, single-purpose building that was specialized with exam rooms. UHD had approached him looking for a bigger building and was interested to know if they wanted to sell. While Parnell initially said no, the more he thought about it the more he considered who else would want it when he was getting ready to retire.

He signed a non-compete and is now unable to offer some services, like delivering babies. In his last month of work at Dulcimer, Parnell delivered 10 babies.

“I had delivered thousands of babies. That was one of the things I really loved,” Parnell said.

While he’s done with that work, he is now focusing on integrative and functional care.

“It’s really about looking at the underlying causes. Too much, too often in more traditional allopathic medicine, you’ll come in with say, heartburn, and they’ll put you on the purple pill to block stomach acid… but it also blocks calcium and vitamin B12…,” Parnell said.

He said it can cause other side effects that can require more medication.

“From a functional standpoint, we try to find out what is going on and what the root cause is,” Parnell said.

Since before he left Dulcimer at the end of February, Parnell has been getting his new space ready at Victoria State Crossing. He is occupying a space that Gethmann Dental Office was formerly in so it was set up for the most part for patient care with treatment rooms.

“It worked out to be an ideal place for us to come,” Parnell said.

Along with Parnell, there is ToniLynn Fleming, nurses in the lab and support staff.

In the next week or so, patients both new and old can start being seen. Along with many local patients, Parnell shared that he has patients in Sioux Falls, Nebraska, all over Iowa and Minnesota and has seen plenty of patients from other states, too.

“Now I’ll be spending more of my time working with some more complex, chronically ill patients,” Parnell said.

When it comes down to it, he just wants to continue to help care for people.

“There’s a certain amount of gratification you get from seeing patients who come to you without hope and being able to sit down and talk with them and tell them what the problem is and what we can do. To give them a sense of hope is invaluable,” Parnell said.

He said one of his patients recently sent him a clipping of a pediatrician in Georgia who is still seeing patients at 99.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever retire,” Parnell said with a laugh. “As long as the good Lord lets me live and keep my wits about me.”