Mayo doctors reflect on 25 years in PdC

By Steve Van Kooten

Mayo Clinic is a world-renowned brand; people from across the globe, including celebrities, presidents and even the former King Hussein of Jordan, have come to the Minnesota-based provider for treatment that is considered among the best care available.

25 years ago, Mayo put down roots in Prairie du Chien, and the two-doctor practice has remained a community staple since then.

“The recruiters from Mayo came to us and asked if we would be willing to open up a clinic in Prairie because they had a lot of people from the community asking for a different choice,” said Dr. Robert Key, one of the two doctors that started the Prairie location. “They told us to come down and explore [Prairie du Chien], and Mike [Rogge] knew a lot more about the area. They were looking for someone to get it started, and I told them I would come here for about 18 months to get them started. I found it was a great place to live, and there’s a lot of wonderful people. So, I stayed for 25 years.”

Key grew up in northern Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota before doing his residency at the Mayo Clinic in La Crosse. He met Dr. Michael Rogge while working, and the two of them took the opportunity to build a practice from the ground up.

“What I remember hearing when we first started this was that this was the first one that Mayo started building from the ground up rather than buying another place and just taking over a practice,” said Key.

Rogge, who grew up in Oelwein, Iowa, and attended the University of Iowa, said, “I don’t think either of us probably thought at the time that we were going to be here 25 years later, but it was a unique opportunity for two young doctors.”

At the time, Prairie du Chien did not have many clinical options other than Gundersen and the hospital, which did not have the number of services it has today. The clinic broke ground just before the turn of the century and welcomed its first patients on Sept. 29, 1999.

The next year, Mayo began expanding their Prairie du Chien practice, adding Dr. David DeHart. Over the next two-and-a-half decades, the clinic has added several associate providers and care services to meet the needs of the community.

“We’ve seen it. We’ve been here 25 years, and when we first started off, we were the young doctors, so we delivered lots of babies, lots of young kids,” said Rogge. “Our practice has changed. Our patients have gotten older; they need more complex medical care.”

As the patients have gotten older, the clinic has added specialists to make their services more individualized and accessible. Rogge also pointed out that the Mayo name means the clinic is supported by one of the most lauded medical institutions in the world.

“We allow our patients to get access locally but can continue their care all the way through the towers. They can get to Rochester if they need the best guy in the world,” he said.

“Now with telemedicine we’re able to provide some of that, and I think that’s a trend in rural practice in those specialty things that are needed. Mayo’s been doing that. We’ve got a specialty room set up to do that,” said Key.

One of those additions is in-house clinical therapy services. The Prairie du Chien clinic has two providers available for their patients.

“Mental health is a huge part of physical health,” said Rogge. “Every single person that gets seen here, Mayo has all of these protocols, and everyone gets screened.”

Doctors offices are an important asset to the community because they deal face-to-face with all kinds of people, and often times, they have a chance to identify and address mental health barriers that might otherwise go unnoticed.

“We realize we’re frontline people to see mental health issues, being able to catch them,” said Rogge. “Since we added therapy services here, our ability to take care of the whole patient is significantly better.” 

Rogge estimated that as much as 1/4 of their patients exhibit signs of mental health struggles when they come for other treatment.

Even though the community is changing and the way medical care is delivered has changed drastically in the last ten years — let alone 25 years. Rogge and Key agree that their foundation is family medicine, and patient-first care will always lead their multi-disciplinary approach to treatment.

“Family medicine is ideal. We’re trained in all the different specialties. We spend time with them for weeks at a time helping them out with complex cases, and that helps us understand where they’re coming from and come up with options,” said Key.

Rogge added, “Our job is to be the gatekeeper. They may see the nephrologist, they may see the cardiologist, but at the end of the day, those guys look sometimes with blinders on at their own little niche. As a primary care doctor, my job is to look at what they say and talk to you about it.”

Since 1999, Key, Rogge and their team have taken care of generations in Prairie du Chien; they’ve seen children grow up and start their own families. It gives them an insight into what the community needs, and it invests them in Prairie du Chien’s wellbeing.

“We’re not just their doctor; we’re going to see them at the grocery store. When you go into a small community like that, you’re buying into all of that,” said Rogge.