Surgeons dissolving partnership

Jana Mathia, Whitman County Gazette | Dec 10, 20200

COLFAX — Hospital boards at Whitman Hospital and Medical Clinics, Pullman Regional Hospital and Gritman Hospital have made the decision to dissolve Palouse Surgeons LLC, effective Sept. 1, 2021. The partnership was developed to provide general surgery to the three area hospitals and has served them since 2009.

The three surgeons in the partnership are Drs. John Visger, Juan Parra and Nancy Panko.

“It’s worked really well,” Whitman Hospital spokeswoman Laurie Gronning said.

The struggle has been in giving adequate service to all three hospitals, Gronning said.

Whitman Hospital has a 20% share in the partnership, with Pullman and Gritman each holding 40%. With only 20%, patients at Whitman Hospital may not have been able to get their surgery in Colfax. Instead, they would have to travel to a hospital with a larger share of the surgeon’s time.

“I really think it’s going to be a positive,” Gronning said of the dissolution.

General surgery includes appendectomy, breast, colorectal, gallbladder removal, hernia repair, varicose vein removal, lumpectomy and esophageal, she said.

Whitman Hospital will be recruiting surgeons between now and the September dissolutionment.

“We’re still going to provide the same great care on the Palouse,” Gronning said. All the general surgery services will remain available at Whitman. There just may be different faces providing that service. Exactly what that will look like is yet undetermined.”

Gronning said she expects the dissolution to provide a better opportunity to expand services at Whitman Hospital.