This week, On Call with the Prairie Doc®, founded by the late Dr. Richard P. Holm, M.D. begins its twentieth season of providing truthful, timely, and tested medical information free to the public since 2001 via South Dakota Public Broadcasting, and more recently, streaming on Facebook and archived on YouTube. The first show of the new season airs Thursday, September 2 at 7 p.m. Central / 6 p.m. Mountain.
Holm’s programs, including television, radio, podcast, newspaper, and social media, continue today thanks to a team of Prairie Docs® from Brookings, South Dakota who, after Holm’s death from pancreatic cancer in March 2020, agreed to help continue his legacy. Andrew Ellsworth, M.D., Kelly Evans-Hullinger, M.D., Debra Johnston, M.D., and Jill Kruse, D.O. author weekly newspaper columns and host radio and television Q&A programs featuring volunteer medical professionals from across the region.
A media career for Holm began in the early 1990s after having been a frequent guest discussing medical topics on local AM talk radio KBRK in Brookings. Holm was asked to develop a weekly medical radio show working with Joan Hogan, a non-traditional student at South Dakota State University majoring in Communication Studies. The resulting weekly half-hour radio program named Holmspun Medicine began and has been on the air most Wednesday mornings since 1993.
From the beginning, Holm’s goal for the radio program was to share with the public, honest, scientific answers to medical questions. While the current program format remains similar to the original, its name has evolved to Prairie Doc® Radio and it is also available as a podcast by the same name.
After launching the radio program, Holm and Hogan pursued their goal of producing a television series. In 1995, working with Brookings producers Jay Vanduch and Ginger Thomson of TV Productions, they created a five-part series named House Call. SDPB agreed to air the series which featured Holm and other physicians from throughout South Dakota discussing timely medical concerns.
In 2001, Hogan, then an instructor at SDSU, approached SDPB with the idea of an on-going informative medical program. Within the year On Call, a weekly half-hour taped television program had a regular timeslot on SDPB. The program was soon extended to a one hour, live, question and answer format airing during prime time. Today we know the program as On Call with the Prairie Doc® which originates from Yeager Media Center on the SDSU campus. It is broadcast on SDPB and streams on Facebook most Thursday nights and is also available as a podcast called Prairie Doc® On Call.
To promote the television programs, Holm wrote newspaper briefs to highlight each program topic. These briefs evolved to weekly newspaper columns named Prairie Doc® Perspectives and circulation has expanded to more than 150 newspapers in South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and Illinois.
Dr. Holm and his wife Joanie Holm, CNP recognized production of these programs was dependent upon significant on-going private funding and in 2011, they founded the Healing Words Foundation. This 501c3 foundation and its volunteer board of directors, with Joanie Holm as president, serve as the umbrella funding organization for Prairie Doc® programming. Donations to the foundation provide 100 percent of the funding needed to continue the message of the Prairie Doc®.
Readers are invited to follow The Prairie Doc® at www.prairiedoc.org.
