Becky McDugle is a certified nurse practitioner and Dr. Michael Brozik is a surgeon at the Surgical Institute of South Dakota. The two recently joined the surgical team at Pipestone County Medical Center. Photo by Kyle Kuphal

General surgeon Dr. Michael Brozik and board certified nurse practitioner (CNP) Becky McDugle have joined the surgical team at Pipestone County Medical Center (PCMC) through a partnership between PCMC and the Surgical Institute of South Dakota.

According to its website, the Surgical Institute of South Dakota specializes in general surgery and its surgeons practice at Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center, Sioux Falls Specialty Hospital, Avera Heart Hospital of South Dakota and Sanford USD Medical Center. It also offers services at outreach locations in the area, including Flandreau, Dell Rapids, Freeman, Hendricks and Tyler.

Brozik has been with the Surgical Institute for seven years and McDugle for 14 years. They remain employees of the Surgical Institute while providing services at PCMC.

Brozik called the surgeries he will perform at PCMC “bread and butter surgeries.” They include endoscopies, colonoscopies, upper endoscopies, hernia surgeries, gallbladder surgeries, appendectomies, hemorrhoid resections, lymph node removals, skin mass excisions and more.

Brozik will be at PCMC every Monday and Wednesday to perform surgeries and see inpatients. The rest of the week, he will be in Sioux Falls. McDugle will be at PCMC Monday through Friday. She will assist Brozik in the operating room, do rounds with post-op patients, and see patients for follow-ups, consults, and as needed in the emergency room.

Brozik and McDugle both live in Sioux Falls, and McDugle plans to purchase a home in Holland in August.

PCMC CEO Brad Burris said PCMC considered options to provide surgical care in Pipestone after Dr. Nick Harms left last fall. Those services were provided through a locum, or visiting, surgeon until the partnership with the Surgical Institute. He said the partnership will provide consistent, high-quality, local surgical care.

“We try to serve people locally and do everything we can locally to minimize travel,” Burris said. “There’s a cost and time involved in having to go to another place like Sioux Falls. Just like our OB program here, we try to maintain a robust variety of services to serve the residents of the county and beyond.”

Burris and Tricia Prins, manager of the specialty clinic at PCMC, said the partnership will allow patients to build relationships with surgical staff and benefit PCMC staff and providers in other departments by providing reliable services and coverage for general surgery. Burris said another benefit is the Surgical Institute’s “bench dept.” When Brozik is away, Dr. Lukas Mueller and Dr. Michael Bauer will fill in for him, and when McDugle is away, Physician Assistant Gwen Smith will fill in for her. Prins said McDugle will also be able to work with Brozik and the Surgical Institute team in Sioux Falls when Brozik is away at PCMC.

“She always has that backup and we have seen that it works very well with the orthopedic team,” said Prins.

Burris said the agreement between PCMC and the Surgical Institute is a long-term solution and that PCMC is not looking for an in-house surgeon. He said the partnership is the first of its kind for the Surgical Institute, but is similar to what PCMC does for orthopedics.

“Because that model has worked so well here, we’ve moved to the same model with the Surgical Institute, where we have a local provider and ultimately that’s driven by the specialty team in Sioux Falls,” Prins said. “I think it’s going to provide great local care and continuation of surgical services that we can provide here in town and keep our patients here.”

Burris said the partnership with the Surgical Institute will cost PCMC $617,500, compared to an annual cost of $337,480 for the locum surgeon who provided surgical services. However, he said the comparison is not apples to apples because the locum surgeon was at PCMC every other week, while McDugle will be at PCMC full time and Brozik will be there two days a week.

“It’s actually better coverage,” Burris said.