New endocrinologist in town

By Jomay Steen, Journal staff | Tuesday, November 27, 2007

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RAPID CITY — After seven years with only one affiliated diabetic specialist to serve at Rapid City Regional Hospital, a doctor with more than 34 years of experience has stepped in to offer his care and expertise to the medical community in the Black Hills area.

Dr. Thomas Hanson has become a familiar face working with physicians, physician assistants and other medical providers who regularly work with diabetics. As a doctor who specializes in treating disorders of the endocrine system, which includes diabetes and hypothyroidism, he practiced medicine for 28-1/2 years at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, and for the past three years at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, Colo. A 1970 graduate of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center at Norman, Okla., Hanson completed his residency and a fellowship at the University of Colorado Medical Center at Denver in 1973 and 1975, respectively.

On Memorial Day weekend 2006, Hanson and his wife, Gwen, toured Deadwood, Spearfish and Devils Tower in Wyoming, then headed to Rapid City before driving to Mount Rushmore and the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs.

“This is a very appealing area. Being an Oklahoma native, I never got this far north,” said Hanson.

Even on that first visit, the couple was intrigued.

“We circled the hospital before driving on,” he admitted.

Last week, the Hansons welcomed their grown children and their families to their new home for Thanksgiving, where they served a delicious south Louisiana specialty called

turducken.

“It’s a chicken inside a duck stuffed in a turkey,” Hanson said. “It comes to us frozen rock solid and takes days to defrost. Then you have to be sure to get it completely done.”

Along with the late afternoon dinner, the Hansons rolled out the red carpet for their three grown daughters and their sons-in-law as well as the five grandchildren.

“For most of them, it will be the first time for them to come to the Black Hills,” he said.

While it was fun for the Hansons, it was also serendipitous for the Regional Medical Clinic-Endocrinology, which had been without a diabetic specialist for nearly four years.

Hanson’s office is located at 3501 Fifth St.

Hanson has been so busy consulting with his Rapid City colleagues as the new diabetes specialist, that he has yet to completely unpack his files, which are neatly stacked in storage boxes in his office. Like all regions across the United States, the diabetic population is growing while the number of physicians who treat it is dwindling.

Diabetic care is changing so rapidly that the support of sub-specialists is needed to meet that change, Hanson said.

He often meets with physician assistants, certified diabetic educators and dietitians to talk about therapies that will best treat his patients. There has been an explosion of new treatments discovered since the disease was first discovered 2,000 years ago.

“We’ve never had better therapies as we do now,” Hanson said.

Currently, 22 million people have diabetes: 90 percent having Type 2 and 10 percent having Type 1.If a parent has diabetes, there’s a 40 percent chance that his or her child will get the disease. If both parents have diabetes, the percentage goes up to 80 percent in children eventually getting the disease.

“Rapid City is in proximity to several reservations. Native Americans have the highest incidence of Type 2 diabetes in the world,” he said.

Hanson found that as long as Native Americans keep lean and very active, they tend to escape from the disease. Yet sedentary lifestyles, coupled with a Western diet, have caused the disease to appear in younger generations of natives at an earlier age.

“The next generation will develop diabetes even earlier,” he said.

Of the 22 million diabetics, only two-thirds, or more than 14 million people, are aware that they have the disease and are actively treating it.

“It comes on so gradually, it slips by you,” Hanson said of the disease.

If left untreated, the disease can cause irreversible damage.

It is a common cause of blindness, sexual dysfunction, depression and nerve damage to the internal organs, hands and feet. It also damages the vascular system, putting one at risk for heart attack and stroke as well as failure of the kidneys.

“During your annual exam, you should be tested (for high blood sugar),” he said.

While some patients are surprised and angered to discover that they have diabetes, it is a disease that can be beaten, depending on the type and if it is in early onset, he said.

“Lose weight, exercise and you can revert back to normal. But you can’t regain the weight,” Hanson said of Type 2 diabetes.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com.

If you go

Who: Diabetics

What: The Diabetes Self-Management Class

When: 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12

Telephone: 719-4970

Where: Regional Medical Clinic Endocrinology at 3501 Fifth St. in Rapid City

Other: An initial meeting is required of participants before attending the Dec. 12 group self-management class. A health care provider will need to set up the series for participants. Cost for these classes is covered by Medicare Part B and most insurance companies. For information or to register for the diabetes self-management course, call Regional Medical Clinic — Endocrinology and Diabetes Education at 719-4970.