Rebecca Moore, M.D., joins Melissa Memorial

    Patients at Melissa Memorial Hospital and Family Practice of Holyoke will soon be seeing Dr. Rebecca Moore, the newest addition to the medical staff there.
    Practicing internal medicine, Moore will begin seeing patients the first week of April. In May, she will be taking over the Coumadin clinic, which has been done by Deaun Carpenter. It will continue to have the same hours — the second, third and fourth Wednesday morning each month — but, with the addition of Moore, it will move from being a specialty clinic to a regular clinic at Family Practice.
    Moore has a long history of practicing medicine in a number of different settings, but she prefers rural areas, and when she learned of the opportunity in Holyoke, she described it as a perfect fit. Since her recent move, she’s started meeting the “wonderful people” who call Holyoke home, further reaffirming that she made the right choice.
    Though born and raised in Iowa, Moore moved to Colorado in 1970, and that’s when she was drawn to becoming a doctor. She completed both her undergraduate studies and her medical degree at University of Colorado in Denver. She completed her internal medicine internship at University of Iowa and her residency at UCLA.
    She then moved to Colorado Springs and joined an internal medicine practice, where she did both inpatient  and outpatient care. While still in Colorado Springs, Moore transitioned to working as a hospitalist.
    She quickly found that in large, urban settings, doctors were expected to churn through patients much more quickly than she’d like, sometimes seeing 25 in a day. That’s what drew her toward rural medicine, where she has the opportunity to spend more time with each person. As a doctor, Moore said, she likes to sit with a patient and get to know them, really hearing what’s troubling them.
    For some time, Moore was a locum, working whereever she was needed, typically spending just two or three years in each place. She went all over — mostly in rural places — and really liked it. When Moore ended up back in the Denver area, however, she jumped at the opportunity to get back to rural medicine through a position at MMH.
    Moore has two children, Jenna, who is a registered dietician, and Jordan, who works in travel sales. With her in Holyoke are her dog, Bear, and her cat, Flower.