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Healing begins at home: New doctors choose Somerset and beyond
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By Steve Cornelius, Regional Editor, Commonwealth Journal
On Thursday, Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital will celebrate its 11th residency graduation. A total of 13 doctors—six family medicine residents and seven internal medicine residents—will be awarded their white coats and start their individual medical careers all over the nation.
Led by Dr. Joseph Weigel and Dr. Patrick Jenkins, a total of 38 residents participated in the LCRH Graduate Medical Education program. Some of the residents came from nearby communities, while several came from farther away locales like Buffalo, NY, and Chicago, IL.
“This is now our 11th graduating class of Internal Medicine Residents,” Dr. Weigel said. “For the first time ever, the majority of this graduating class is moving on to Internal Medicine Fellowships in Infectious Disease, Rheumatology, Endocrinology, and Hospice/Palliative Care. Two of our graduates will remain here as teaching hospitalists, and one will practice outpatient Internal Medicine at Northwestern University Health Systems in Chicago.
“While our primary mission has been to produce generalists for local practice, the fact that our trainees are good enough to achieve major university placement in subspecialty medicine is a source of real pride,” Weigel added. “At least one of these subspecialists will return here to work. This is an indication of program maturation, and it makes me proud.”
In the Internal Medicine program, Dr. Sean Craze (Elkview, WV) will be staying at LCRH as a hospitalist; Dr. Emily Haley (Campbellsville, KY) will be completing a Hospice & Palliative Care Fellowship; Dr. Taylor Hermann (Louisville, KY) will be going to do an Infectious Disease Fellowship; Dr. John Kim (Louisville, KY) will be staying at LCRH as a hospitalist; Dr. Hannah Smith (Pike County, GA) will be completing a Rheumatology Fellowship; Dr. Nicole Tomczuk (Norridge, IL) will be going back home to Chicago; and Dr. Luke Vroegindewey (Muskegon, MI) will be going to do an Endocrinology Fellowship. Dr. Weigel is the Internal Medicine program director, and Dr. Rainer Oliver is the Associate Program Director. Libbey Crowe is the Internal Medicine Resident Coordinator.
“Our program has continued to honor the goal of producing high-quality family physicians to practice in rural America,” Dr. Jenkins said. “I feel that this current graduating class may be our most ‘practice ready’ class that we have graduated. They are all clinically skilled and equipped to be successful wherever they land. It has been an honor and privilege to train this group, and I expect that they will change the medical face of the communities they join.”
In the Family Medicine program, Dr. Brianna Brown (Chattanooga, TN) will be going home to Chattanooga; Dr. James Brown (Pineville, KY) will be staying and working at St. Joseph London; Dr. Bradford Layman (Knoxville, TN) will be going home to Tennessee; Dr. Swathi Mohanjumar (Jacksonville, FL) will be going home to Florida; Dr. Corey Morris (McMinnville, TN) will be completing a Wound Care Fellowship; and Dr. Jaysie Smith (Somerset) is staying at LCMA (her local hometown). Dr. Jenkins is the Family Medicine Program Director, and Dr. Jonathan Ruby in the Associate Program Director. Edrie Jones is the Family Medicine Resident Coordinator.
Of the 13 doctors graduating on Thursday, three of them will remain in Somerset to practice medicine.
Born and raised in Somerset, Dr. Jaysie Smith never had any doubts in her mind that she wanted to be a doctor in her hometown.
“I was one of those kids who just always said I wanted to be a doctor,” Dr. Smith said. “I never had a backup. I never had a plan B. Just always knew I wanted to be in medicine.
“Medicine was always the driving factor,” Smith added. “I’m a very type-B personality, so organization is something that I have to always kind of really try for and structure everything. It doesn’t come naturally to me, so it was always in the back of my mind. If you’re going to get into medical school, you have to do this. You have to be a straight-A student.
With family and friends in the local area, Dr. Smith saw being a doctor in Somerset was her way of giving back to the community. “A big thing is my family; my whole family is just about here, and I really want to be close to them,” Dr Smith said. “I have a little girl now, and so I’ve got roots here in Somerset. I want her to grow up in Somerset. I love this community, I love the people in the community, and I want to take care of them.”
“For so long, we have had such a good set of physicians taking care of the community, and a lot of them are retiring now,” Smith continued. “I love that we’re kind of getting this newer wave of physicians in there, and a lot of them have trained at this program, and I have trained under them. So I love that I’m going to be able to join them and just take care of these people whom I have known and grown up with.”
Coming from a larger city, Dr. John Kim fell in love with the local area and wanted to stay in Somerset.
“I recently got into disc golf,” Dr. Kim stated. “There’s a good local group of guys that play disc golf. We have beautiful parks and courses around the area, and the people I play golf with range from children to old men — who are just friendly. Being able to experience that friendliness outside also helped me decide to live in Somerset over Louisville. Also, my neighbor knows I’m a resident, he knows I work long hours, and I’m always busy. So, randomly, he’ll just mow my lawn out of the goodness of his heart, and he doesn’t want anything in return. Those small things really build up a lot, especially when you’re as busy as we are as residents.”
Dr. Kim first became interested in medicine by taking mission trips with his church in Louisville, and he wants to do more mission trips as a new doctor.
“I still want to do medical missions,” Kim stated. “I believe that the mission field is not only across the globe, but it’s right here in the community, and as a hospitalist here my schedule typically will be a week on and a week off. So during my time off, I’ll be able to really try to help the community, try to go abroad and help those less fortunate than us. And I think it’s just a perfect compromise and a perfect way to accomplish my life mission.”
Growing up in West Virginia, Dr. Sean Craze fell in love with medicine after being cared for at his local hospital in West Virginia.
“When I was nine years old, I was hospitalized with meningitis,” Dr. Craze recalled. “And after a few days, my pediatrician came to see me and took some time explaining everything that was going on with me, what was being done, and how it was going to help. It was a very eye-opening experience, and I was fascinated by the science aspect of it, but I also wanted to be able to have that same effect on other people, where you take something that was incredibly scary and uncomfortable and make it simple to understand and easier to deal with.”
Craze credited the great array of local doctors from whom he learned as one of the reasons he wanted to stay in the Somerset area to practice medicine.
“At first, I wasn’t convinced that internal medicine was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Craze stated. “I came across several people who were equally passionate about medicine and the work that we do, individuals like (Dr.) Shaelyn Dixon, (Dr.) R.J. Blackburn, and (Dr.) Andrew Blakley. And it became apparent to me that this was what I wanted to do.”
“Over time, there were challenges of personality conflicts, long work hours, and extra assignments that kind of tore people down,” Craze explained. “That’s when I started to really enjoy the mentorship of individuals like Dr. Josh Hall, Dr. Rainer Oliver, and Dr. Sam Weigel, who are just as passionate about the medical aspect, but also have a lot of life advice.”
“I also really enjoyed working with people like (Dr.) Ashley Harris and (Dr.) Meghan Campbell, who were very compassionate teachers and gave me an idea of how I wanted to interact with those who followed in my footsteps,” Craze said. “As far as my colleagues, I found out very quickly that my co-resident, John Kim, was going to be somebody that I enjoyed spending time with and somebody that I could rely on through the coming years.”
As Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital celebrates the graduation of its 11th GME class, the event stands as a testament to the program’s growth, impact, and enduring mission. With physicians choosing to stay and serve the Somerset area and others branching out across the country to continue their training or begin their practices, the legacy of this program is evident in the lives they will touch.