On Wednesday, Nov. 5, at noon the League of Women Voters of Leelanau County will host a public forum: “Federal Dollars & Rural Healthcare: What’s Ahead for Our Region?” at the Leelanau County Government Center off M-204, between Lake Leelanau and Suttons Bay.
Not long after moving to the region, Empire’s new doctor Daniel Hadley and his family visited the Empire Heritage Day festival on Oct. 12, where they watched fresh apple cider being made and logs being sawed. At the town’s historic museum, he posed for a photo in front of a wooden buggy—the kind that a country doctor may have used to visit far-flung patients in their homes a century ago. Dr. Hadley won’t be making house calls at all hours down Leelanau County’s dusty two-track roads. But he will offer primary care four days a week to people of all ages at the clinic on M-22 just north of downtown. According to Munson Healthcare, the greater Empire area serves nearly 5,600 patients.
December 15 was the last regular day of work for Dr. Nicole Fliss at Empire Family Care, who arrived on this scene just before Dr. Matthew Houghton closed his office in Glen Arbor. Here is how it happened, why she’s leaving now, and what the future might bring for her and the clinic.
Drs. Cyrus Ghaemi and Katie Krezoski-Evans have joined Dr. Nicole Fliss at Munson Healthcare’s family practice in Empire, which serves infants to elders. We posed the following questions to Krezoski-Evans and Ghaemi in order to get to know them.