Graeber plans June retirement
Graeber plans June retirement
By CHERYL ODDEN
Lu Graeber, an RN-PA at Garrison Family Clinic, is retiring the end of June. The milestone, however, will not mean the end of her service as a health care worker.
Graeber has been a Garrison-based health care provider for most of her professional career. In 1976, after graduating from Dickinson State College’s nursing program, she worked as an R.N. at Garrison Memorial Hospital. Later, when the late Dr. John Boyle and the late Dr. Kermit Leonard operated the Garrison Clinic, she worked for them as a staff nurse. When the clinic became affiliated with Medical Arts of Minot, she served as manager.
While managing the clinic, Medical Arts administrators encouraged her to become a PA (physician’s assistant). With additional encouragement from Wade, her late husband, she enrolled at UND for the necessary training.
Upon graduation, she returned to Garrison and was employed at the Garrison hospital and clinic.
Graeber’s professional career changed in late 1992 when she accepted a position in Minot. For the next eight years, she was assistant to Dr. Frank Shipley, a thoracic-vascular surgeon.
In 2001, due to her husband’s failing health, Graeber returned to Garrison Family Clinic.
Reflecting on a medical career that has spanned nearly 35 years, Graeber shared several ways she has been involved in health care. She serves on the N.D. Health Department’s Tuberculosis Advisory Board and performs eye enucleation for the Lions Eye Bank. She is also involved with Community Options as family support for her adult niece.
Graeber served the Garrison-Max Ambulance District as a volunteer crew member, a board member and a CPR instructor. For several years she was also a member of the N.D. Board of Physician Assistants.
