Dr. Leyton Jump owned Tenino Family Practice for about 30 years. He has continued to work at the clinic, now owned by Valley View Health Center, before retiring.
Mardona Anderson (left), David Caulfield (center), and Dr. Sundy Holland (right) stand by the Tenino Valley View Health Center sign.
The Valley View Health Clinic in Tenino is restructuring itself in preparation for Dr. Leyton Jump’s retirement. After more than 30 years of providing health care in Tenino, he plans to retire in May.
Dr. Sundy Holland will be the new physician in Tenino. For the month of March, Holland will see patients on Mondays to ease into her new role at Tenino.
“I love the job,” Holland said. “I think it’s a real privilege to work with people in this aspect of their lives and work with them to find a way that works for them to be healthy. I love having that kind of interaction with people.”
Holland is an internal medical physician. She grew up in California and went to medical school back east. She went to the University of Washington to do her internal medicine residency in 1994 and fell in love with the area.
“I consider this my home,” Holland said. “It’s a beautiful area. I love the people up here.”
Holland has been with Valley View for a year and a half. She will continue to work at the Chehalis branch until Jump retires and she works in Tenino full time. Holland said she enjoys working in small communities.
“You really get an opportunity to get to know the people that you’re working with,” Holland said. “You get the chance to understand where they’re living, what obstacles are in their life that can be a problem, what things that make their life really happy living in this community.”
The clinic has also added behavioral health. Mardona Anderson MA, LMHC started at the Tenino Valley View Healthcare Clinic in September. Anderson is a licensed psychotherapist, but she also does care management at VVHC. She does everything from referring patients to resources for substance abuse treatment to monitoring patients’ medication management.
“My job is to work myself out of a job,” Anderson said. “I tell that all the time to people. My job is not to foster a dependence, it’s to get them (patients) up and running, and feeling better and to help assist them with anything from fatigue, to chronic pain, to insomnia. I mean it all affects our moods.”
Anderson is currently in Tenino two days per week, but may increase her time there if demand for behavioral health services rises. She said that the clinic isn’t as much changing their services as they are implementing and providing more.
“It’s an expansion of the services,” Anderson said.
David Caulfield, an advanced registered nurse practitioner, will continue to see patients in Tenino.
“We’re seeing more, and we being medicine, are seeing more need for behavioral health integrated into our system,” Caulfield said. “Almost every diagnosis, they all have increased levels of depression and anxiety … So sometimes as a family practice we get to be the ear of the patient, but having someone who can do the counseling along with whatever medications, it just makes a better mix for things.”
Come this July, Caulfield will have been at the Tenino Valley View Health Clinic for two years.
“These patients are great,” Caulfield said. “It took me a while with some patients to build rapport — to let them know I’m just a person and to get them to trust me — because that’s a really important part of care. If the patient doesn’t trust you, they’re not going to follow recommendations.”
