New PMA doctor has small-town roots
With a father who's a family practice doctor and a brother in pharmacy school, it's no wonder that Dr. Lorrie Campbell went into medicine.
Now, Campbell has brought her expertise to Hillsboro.
Campbell is the newest doctor on staff at the Preferred Medical Associates Clinic on Ash Street. She began work on Monday.
Although her family lived in several places while she was growing up, Campbell claims Sedan, Kan., as her hometown. That's where she graduated from high school.
After high school, Campbell went on to Sterling College, where she graduated with her bachelor's degree. She then attended medical school at the University of Health Sciences in Kansas City, which is an osteopathic medicine school.
Campbell's interest in medicine started as a youngster. Her father began medical school when she was 4, and he'd bring home many items of interest from class.
Campbell likes the approach of osteopathic medicine.
"You look at one person instead of one part (of the body)," she said.
Campbell then completed a three-year residency in Jefferson City, Mo.
As she was looking for a place to practice medicine, Campbell knew of the opening at the PMA clinic. But she heard that Hillsboro wanted a doctor who also did obstetrics work — which she doesn't.
But over the hiring process, Campbell found out that O.B. wasn't the necessity that she'd thought. And she was already familiar with the Hillsboro area through Tabor College — she'd visited as a Sterling student for musical events, and she had friends in the area.
After growing up in Sedan, population 2,000, Campbell was ready for small-town life again.
"I prefer a smaller town," she said.
The difference between Sedan and Hillsboro? Hillsboro has a stoplight, she said.
At the end of Monday's work day, Campbell had already seen six patients. And she anticipates that being a woman doctor in a town with three other male doctors will help Hillsboro women feel more at ease.
"I knew I'd be seeing female patients," Campbell said.
In her free time, Campbell enjoys spending time with her two cats and dog — who's a "basset hound mutt," she said. Someday she'd like to train him to work as a therapy dog.
Campbell's also musically inclined — she's teaching herself to play the guitar and the hammer dulcimer.
Campbell is at home in Willow Glen.
