Jim Buhr Hometown: Sauk Centre, MN Current Home: Valley City, ND Major: Chemistry Additional Education: M.D., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN Email: james.b.buhr.md@gmail.com After eight years of education in a one-room schoolhouse, I graduated from Brooten, Minnesota, High School, working every day on our family’s dairy farm with my five brothers. After graduating in ’67, I worked a second summer in metallurgy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I received my M.D. in 1971. In 1970, I married Sharon Muir (’68) who was teaching home economics in Alexandria. We spent three months working in a malnutrition center in Cuzco, Peru, during one of my free quarters. After internship at Lutheran General Hospital, I worked in a Lutheran mission hospital in South Africa. I worked long hours, did lots of surgery, but we both enjoyed it immensely, especially living next to Hluhluwe Game Reserve where we got hooked on birdwatching. We traveled to Cape Town with Sharon’s parents, to Madagascar to visit my brother, Paul, and to Victoria Falls. In 1976 we returned to the U.S. I started a Family Practice residency followed by working at Maplewood Clinic in St. Paul for another two years. Sharon finished her Master’s in Public Health. Our oldest son, Christian, was born in 1978. I started practicing Family Medicine in Valley City, North Dakota, at a clinic that later became a part of MeritCare, then Sanford. I also took on the task of county health officer and served on the County Health Board. We spent six months in Liberia helping at Curran Lutheran Hospital where I did tropical medicine, and Sharon managed the public health program. Our second son, Nicolai (Nico), was born in 1985. In 1984 I worked for three months at Garou Boulai Hospital, Cameroon. I had to work in French so I had 20 lessons at Maryvale Convent in Valley City. In 2003 MeritCare became a leader in using electronic medical records. I spent many evenings entering data. In 2006 I traveled to the Central African Republic (CAR) for Global Health Ministries (GHM) to investigate the need for a new hospital there. I served six years on the board of GHM, traveling back to the CAR to assess the hospital’s progress. We have lived 37 years in Valley City. Every winter we go on a ski trip. In summer we enjoy canoeing, tennis and sailing. We have gone on trips to Alaska, Ecuador, Thailand, Cambodia, France, India, and to France and Austria with Michael Barone from MPR to tour pipe organs. I started semi-retirement in 2016 which I hope to continue until 2020. I received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Concordia in 2016.
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