Hospital district hires physician

A veteran physician is set to join the staff of Adams County Public Hospital District No. 2 on May 5.

Doctor Timothy C. Bryant will commence a full time schedule in the Ritzville Medical Clinic and East Adams Rural Hospital in May.

Hospital commissioners voted unanimously on Jan. 23 to offer Bryant a contract contingent upon the completion of reference checks. One week later, CEO Gary Bostrom extended the contract offer to Bryant, who has since agreed to the terms.

The hospital district offered Bryant a $175,000 annual contract with no incentives and no recruitment fees. This is a one-year contract with a clause that calls for automatic renewal. Bryant will be afforded a $10,000 moving allowance.

According to Bostrom, the district’s newest physician will work in the clinic five days a week. Bryant will serve as the primary care physician one weekend a month and the back-up call physician one other weekend a month. Bryant will also be the on-call physician one night a week and back-up call physician another night each week.

Bryant joins staff physician Valerie Eckley and physicians assistant Marni Boyer. Doctor Charles M. Sackmann of Hometown Family Medicine will continue his part-time contract with the district, which includes him serving as the primary on-call physician one night a week.

Bryant completed his Bachelors of Science degree in chemistry and biology in 1973 at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

His Degree of Physician and Surgeon was earned at Autonoma University of Guadalajara, in Guadalara, Jalisco, Mexico between 1974 and 1977.

Bryant’s third and fourth year clinical clerkships were completed at Oakwood hospital in Dearborn, Mich.

Bryant moved to Eastern Washington in 2000. According to his professional history, he served as a Locums Tenens in 2000 for several agencies, including the Quinault Indian Nation at Pacific Beach, Wash., and Community Health Center in Aberdeen.

In 2001 he opened a private practice in Brewster simultaneously he shared hospital call and worked in the emergency room at Brewster’s Three Rivers Hospital.

From 2010 through 2013 he served as the Emergency Room Director for the hospital.

Bryant said he looks forward to establishing strong relationships in Ritzville.

“I really enjoy the people. You have a really good mix in terms of your patients,” he said. “I like the arrangement with the hospital. I will have enough time to get a good history. Doctors are really being shoved in a corner in terms of production. You want to be able to sit down with people and have enough time to get enough history. One-on-one attention, that’s exactly what I want to do.”

The move to Ritzville also provides an opportunity for career longevity while working with a Critical Access Hospital.

“It is a good choice. For a number of good reasons,” he said. “In terms of practical reasons, I will have survivability even if the federal government decided to shut down most of the Critical Access Hospitals, it won’t close this one.”

Bryant also has a connection to the agriculture industry and rural life. He was born in Port Orchard and was raised on dairy farms, eventually moving with his family to Moses Lake in 1965.

“I grew up on a dairy farm where we milked 500 cows a day,” he said. “When I was doing my internship, we were doing 120 hours a week in the hospital and I was the only one not complaining about the hours. But the truth is, on the farm, you don’t go home until the last cow is milked.”