Cannon Falls doctor plans clinic

Dr. Karl Molenaar has joined Olmsted Medical Center’s clinical staff to provide family medicine services to patients in the Wanamingo and Cannon Falls areas.

Molenaar is building a new facility in Cannon Falls to house his practice. OMC will begin to lease the new facility from Molenaar in 2013. This will be OMC’s newest and northernmost branch clinic, making Cannon Falls the 11th community with an OMC presence.

The Cannon Falls facility will be built to accommodate growth and expansion of providers and services. In the future, OMC plans to add at least one women’s health physician and at least one nurse practitioner or physician assistant, officials said. Several specialty healthcare providers will rotate through the clinic.

Molenaar will begin seeing patients full time at the OMC Wanamingo branch clinic next month. As the Cannon Falls clinic construction nears completion in 2013, Molenaar will begin splitting his clinical time between Wanamingo and Cannon Falls.

Molenaar is a graduate of Cannon Falls High School, Gustavus Adolphus College and the University of Minnesota. He completed his medical internship and residency at Hennepin County Medical Center’s family practice department.

Molenaar began practicing family medicine in 1987 with his father in Cannon Falls. Since 2010, he has been an emergency room physician for the Minnesota-based First Light Health System.

OMC, a not-for-profit organization, has operated clinics in southeastern Minnesota since 1949. OMC’s 160 clinicians and 1,000 health care professionals serve 16 locations, including two outpatient multi-specialty clinics, a Level IV trauma hospital with walk-in urgent care and 24-hour emergency room and nine community branch clinics.

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