Red Feather Medical Clinic hosting health fair

By Linda Bell
Correspondent

Mountain residents won't need to drive to Fort Collins to benefit from a low-cost health fair. Instead, they can stop by the Red Feather Medical Clinic in the village at 168 Main St. on April 22.

From 8 a.m. to noon, the clinic will host its second Channel 9 Health Fair. "We'll offer a low-cost fasting blood panel, a PSA test for prostate cancer and a stool kit, plus free services including a blood-pressure check, heel scan for osteoporosis, hearing and vision tests, balance and gait screening, a fat analysis and a test for depression," said Dr. Janice Weixelman.

The Red Feather Medical Clinic is a fairly new but growing addition to the community. "Only two years into this, I'm already where I thought it would take me at least five years to be," Weixelman said. The doctor divides her medical practice between Red Feather Lakes and Wellington.

Since opening, the clinic has added two part-time medical assistants, a physical therapist, a chiropractor, two psychologists, an oxygen bar, Internet access for obtaining health-related information, and, through a special fund-raiser at Fox Acres last summer, an emergency defibrillator.

Although the primary function of the clinic is critical and routine health care, it is also slowly becoming a social hub. Weixelman said volunteers have come forward to propose classes in first aid, CPR and wilderness first aid and to organize a weekly hike-for-health club. In addition, there are a few small, informal, chronic illness support groups.

In the coming year the clinic will add a medicine wheel for herbal and aroma therapies, she said. This will have to be a separate business entity but the preparatory work is already done, she added.

The clinic also has an advisory committee working on applying for Rural Health Clinic status, which would make the clinic eligible for numerous grants and benefits, including community ownership of the clinic itself and a board of directors. The area is already designated a health professional shortage area, or HPSA, but so far there haven't been any reimbursements, Weixelman said. The goal is to keep health care affordable, she said.

A special interest of Weixelman's is high altitude medical research. In May, she will join a group of wilderness medicine researchers in Nepal to study the effects of extreme altitude on people who have come from outside Nepal to mountain climb.

"Risk of increased medical problems at high altitude is almost impossible to predict in normal healthy populations," she said. "In the state of Colorado, a half million people live above 7,000 feet and a lot of them can't stay there."

She noted that she sees a number of altitude-related medical conditions at the Red Feather Clinic, which is located at 8,000 feet.

Weixelman said recent moderate-altitude research, based at 6,000 feet, suggests some people might experience chronic fatigue, impaired digestion, sleep disorders, decreased absorption of medicines and possible growth delay in children. Chronic mountain sickness never goes away, she said.

Weixelman practices at the Red Feather Clinic Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. She said she plans to add a fourth day this summer since the Wellington Clinic will likely have an additional physician by then. She is looking for a corps of volunteers to help in the office with reception and light nonmedical duties, to create a memorial garden and to landscape around the clinic. For more information or to volunteer, call the clinic at 881-2885.