Dr. Stephen McDonough

Dr. Stephen McDonough, a pediatrician with McKenzie Health in Bismarck, has a solid resume as a public health leader, but he now focuses less on policy and more on what North Dakota families need.

He said rural families with limited access to healthcare should not be overlooked in the practice of medicine..

He grew up in Minnesota. In the early 1970s, when he was doing research with the immunology lab at the University of Minnesota, his fellow researchers encouraged him to go into medicine. He originally intended to be a research physician, but when he began medical school, he realized that he had a passion for clinical work. This passion led him to follow his mentors into the field of pediatrics.

He did his residency in Denver and moved to North Dakota in 1980. He has spent the majority of his career working as a general pediatrician but spent 15 years at the North Dakota Department of Health (NDDOH).

McDonough has served as the state epidemiologist, AIDS project director, director of maternal and child health and chief medical officer during his time with NDDOH, according to his biography.

During his tenure at the NDDOH, he was involved with efforts to create smoke free indoors. He also had a hand in helping the state develop policies surrounding the AIDS pandemic, assisting North Dakota to have the lowest HIV/AIDS infection rates for three decades, according to McDonough. He also worked toward eliminating the most common cause of childhood meningitis.

“In my time at the Health Department, we were able to get a number of things accomplished,” he said. He said he further helped develop policy for state agencies to allow mothers of newborns to bring their children to work for the first six months.

In Grand Forks, he began one of the first childhood obesity programs in the area. He said over his career, he evolved to become a chronic conditions pediatrician, dealing with unusual and rare conditions.He said what set him apart is that his practice was focused on children with chronic conditions, such as Down syndrome, colic and developmental delays.

He said he worked hard to get his patients the best care possible, getting them to the best specialists and making sure the families had what they needed. He also holds childhood nutrition in high regard.

One of the barriers to care in the area is lack of providers in the more rural areas. McDonough said remote services are available, but he conceded people prefer face to face meetings. He said outside of the Bismarck-Mandan and Fargo areas, there is a shortage of specialty care providers, especially in northwestern North Dakota, from a pediatrician standpoint.

He explained that one of his roles is to support the family as best as possible. He said underinsured children with health problems are a concern in the medical community, and he works toward getting resources for those families and finding them support. He said he has helped hundreds of children get health insurance over the years because he was able to connect them to resources related to their conditions.

“Don’t just look at the child. Look at the family as well,” he added.

To ensure patients get the best care he can give, he said, “First of all, listen to the Mom, and take parents’ concerns very seriously. I don’t dismiss any of their concerns.” He then provides options for the family to move forward and empowers them to make the decisions. He said for the last 10 years, he has not worked for large corporations and has been able to customize his care for the patients’ needs. Being able to do that has been helpful, and he said he has no quotas to meet so he can spend the time he needs. He also said he takes the time to be persistent with insurance companies, because it’s not all about making a diagnosis. Sometimes paperwork needs to be done to get people what they need.

He laughed as he said that North Dakota Medicaid employees have “probably not much cared for me over the years” because of his insistence. He explained he doesn’t like accepting a “no” and will work hard to make sure that insurance ends the conversation with a “yes” to whatever a child might need, even if it’s expensive out-of-state care. He said the parents of his patients can see how hard he fights for his patients, that they notice, and then they write positive reviews of his service.

McDonough said at one time, he worked in corporate medicine and has been in and out of retirement doing rural healthcare. He said at the smaller practices, he was there by choice and didn’t have to answer to anyone about seeing a certain number of patients per day. He said he prefers working in this model.

“There’s a shortage of providers available to rural North Dakota. I should be retired, but if I choose to go back to work, then I can pick my place. I have no desire to be in a large corporation. I would rather work in smaller places, and I like working in rural North Dakota,” he said.

When speaking about his awards, McDonough said that there are two that were the most unexpected. He said he was the first physician in the Bismarck Sanford Health care system to be selected Sanford’s physician of the year, in 2013.

“I had no idea it was coming, I didn’t view myself as the best physician in the area,” he said, although he was recognized as such. His first recognition, he said, was due to his being a good physician but also being involved in the community.

The biggest award, and one he recently received was the Outstanding Service Award from the North Dakota Public Health Association this year. He is only the second physician in the 63-year history of the award to receive it. The last time it was awarded to a physician was in 1974.

“It means a tremendous amount to me, and it’s the recognition I’m most proud of,” he said. He said his work in 2020 in a small Bismarck clinic was seen by administrators and they really appreciated it when he became a voice of policy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

McDonough said one of his hobbies is wildlife photography, which he enjoys sharing with schools. He runs his hobby in the form of Dakota Reflections, which largely features photos from the Dakotas region, particularly the animals of the Badlands. He enjoys teaching about habitat preservation in schools around his area. He said when he is not working, he most enjoys spending time with his dogs. He hopes to continue to share his love of nature and animals with Bismarck students.

He said he has “always made it a priority to give back and be of service in the community I live in, the state that I live in, the country that I live in and the world that I live in.” He said he wants to always be of service in all four of those arenas.