Dorchester Times: Fight in Friend Over Doctor's Suspension

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Fight in Friend Over Doctor's Suspension

Because many Dorchester residents receive their health care treatment next door in Friend, we felt it was important to highlight a story appearing in today's Lincoln Journal Star.

According to today's Journal Star, Dr. Robert McKeeman, whose hospital privileges were suspended in January 2006, will still not be allowed to see patients at Friend's Warren Memorial Hospital. The article states that "despite the urging of McKeeman’s patients to allow their doctor to treat patients in the hospital, the hospital board took no action on the issue at their Tuesday night meeting.

"The hospital board voted to suspend McKeeman from performing surgeries and admitting patients to the hospital and emergency room for three years, citing quality-of-care issues. The state conducted an investigation into McKeeman’s practices and last month said they found no evidence of wrongdoing. But in the meantime, a rift had formed in the Saline County community between those who supported the board’s decision and those who didn’t. And in April, McKeeman filed a lawsuit against Warren Memorial Hospital and the clinic affiliated with it; the city of Friend, which owns the hospital; the five hospital board members; the two other Friend doctors; and former hospital Administrator Amy Fish. The suit is pending.

“(R)esidents, like Shirley Fox-Thomsen, said she didn’t want to use the hospital if she couldn’t see McKeeman, a longtime Friend doctor who rides his bicycle to house calls and telephones his elderly patients on their birthdays. Brenda Manning, director of the radiology department at Warren Memorial Hospital, said she feared that Friend’s hospital would suffer in the long run if McKeeman’s patients maintain that attitude. Already, she said, some patients have taken their business elsewhere, adding that it has been difficult to see the town divided."

2 comments:

AnonymousAugust 1, 2007 at 1:32 PM
Very interesting and a shame........ My grandmother used to talk about how she loved Dr. Panter in Dorchester who used to have his office where R Lounge is today............. Friend residents should be grateful they have doctors in town and use them!
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AnonymousAugust 2, 2007 at 12:05 PM
Dr. McKeeman has been very good to our family and I continue to go to him. He has given so much to so many of us. Dr. McKeeman will still talk to you personally when you call, still makes house calls and asks about family members and has never hestitated sending me on to a specialist if he wasn't absolutely sure about what was going on. He has my support and thanks.
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."