Texas County Memorial Hospital has hired Elton Hoerning, MD, a board-certified family medicine physician with 29 years of experience in outpatient clinic care.
Hoerning will begin working full-time Nov. 1 at the TCMH Mountain Grove Clinic and will join clinic provider, Sara Openshaw, FN.
Hoerning and Openshaw will take both walk-in and scheduled patients from birth, to end of life. They will treat patients who have anything from routine care needs to complex medical conditions.
“It will be nice to be back home providing care to my own community,” Hoerning said. “Mountain Grove is already familiar to me and I am looking forward to being closer to home practicing medicine again.”
Hoerning is native to Missouri and grew up in Stockton. When he first started his bachelor’s degree he was a music major, but a devastating diagnosis for a close friend prompted him to change his career path.
“My good friend was diagnosed with leukemia and it was tough to watch,” Hoerning said. “As difficult as it was, it had an impact on me.”
In 1983, Hoerning received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Missouri State University in Springfield and was accepted into medical school at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He received his doctorate of medicine four years later and completed a residency in family medicine residency through Cox Health System in Springfield.
Hoerning has practiced in Missouri throughout his medical career, spending the first four years of his career working in the Branson area and then relocated to Mountain Grove in 1997 where he spent 18 years working for Mercy. For the past four years, Hoerning has worked as the medical director for Soldier Medical Readiness at General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital in Fort Leonard Wood.
“We were very fortunate to be able to add Dr. Hoerning to our physician group at TCMH,” CEO Wes Murray said. “Successfully recruiting a physician to TCMH that has been a part of the Mountain Grove community for many years is a win for TCMH and for the community.”
Hoerning and his wife, Vallie, have two adult children – August and Jacob – and two school-aged children – Reagan and Cooper.
Hoerning and his family raise Black Angus cattle on their farm near Mountain Grove.
For more information or to make an appointment with Hoerning or Openshaw, call the TCMH Mountain Grove Clinic at 417-926-1770.