Three top healthcare providers at Unalaska’s clinic recently left the island, but they assure patients that high-quality care will continue during the transition.
The outgoing providers are Doctors Murray Buttner and Megan Sarnecki, who’ve served as co-medical directors, and nurse midwife Jennifer Heller, who said the timing of their departures is coincidental.
“The timing of the three of us leaving — it feels really dramatic, but I think it is kind of how these things happen,” Heller said. “It’s probably healthy, for the clinic and the community and the providers. But change is hard. Change is really hard, and transitions are unsettling. And we’re all working together to make it really smooth — and that the care to the community won’t be affected at all.”
Heller and Buttner moved back to Anchorage after four years in Unalaska with Iliuliuk Family and Health Services. Heller said they’re making the change for their family, as their son gets ready for high school.
“Going into high school, he was interested in some more extracurriculars and some other options,” she said. “I’m from Anchorage. I have a big family in Anchorage…So going there is the obvious thing for our kids right now. So we’re sad to go. It was a big decision. But I feel lucky that we got longer than we had even anticipated when we first moved out here.”
Both Heller and Buttner will continue working with the clinic. Heller said she’ll work part-time remotely, and she may come out to the island as needed.
Buttner said he’ll stay on in his leadership role.
“I’m going to stay the medical director at the clinic into the — what’s it called — undefined future. Until someone living here takes that on. To help with the transition with the new staff, and that’ll probably involve coming out here at least quarterly and staying in very close contact until, again, they can kind of get the new folks up on their feet and ready to go,” Buttner said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Sarnecki — who transitioned to a part-time schedule last summer — is leaving the island after seven years to move to Anchorage.
She said she and her family weren’t planning to go, but she made the decision following several hard years — between the COVID-19 pandemic, and a number of deaths and accidents in the community.
Sarnecki said her decision also came after contract negotiations with the clinic.
“My contract came up for renewal this spring, and that process developed in a way that really led me to feel that I wasn’t valued and respected at the clinic in the same way that I had been in the past,” Sarnecki said. “And we chose to leave the clinic and therefore the community, which has been really challenging.”
Clinic CEO Noel Rea said he and the clinic board of directors did an “admirable job” trying to keep Sarnecki.
“In any scenario, you go through a contract negotiation, and you know, it happens,” Rea said. “We do our best to try and make everybody as happy as we can make them, and it doesn't always work out. And that's unfortunate, but nobody wanted Meg to leave at all, like period. And we said that quite clearly, repeatedly.”
Rea said the clinic is bringing Dr. Jim Walery to the island this summer to help during the transition, and that he’s already made two permanent hires who will start soon.
He said the priority is to recruit providers who can build long-term relationships with their patients, and with the wider community.
“The goal, really, is to get permanent, full-time, year-round people here,” Rea said. “I’m excited to have year-round folks here.”
Buttner, Heller and Sarnecki all said they know or have worked with the new providers, and they’re confident each will provide great care.
Along with Rea, they also said the clinic is heading in a good direction — between new providers, extra federal funding from the pandemic, and ongoing projects, like one that’ll bring a CT scanner to the island.
So even as she leaves, Sarnecki said community members should get involved with the clinic.
“The future of the clinic, long-term — I think it looks really bright,” Sarnecki said. “I think there is a ton of potential there. And another reason to engage with the board and with the clinic in this time of relative prosperity. You know, what does that long-term plan look like for the clinic? And what is the clinic going to look like in five years or 10 years? I would love to see lots of voices involved in that plan.”
Heller, Buttner and Sarnecki all thanked their clinic coworkers, their patients, and the community at large for welcoming them and their families during their time in Unalaska.
“We were just accepted with absolutely open arms, and we have loved living on this island,” said Sarnecki. “I think it’s a magical place from a wilderness standpoint, as well as from the community. It’s a really special community that is filled with so many different types of people that really see each other for who they are and respect each other for who they are, instead of putting them into groups.”
“It’s such an amazing place and amazing clinic,” said Heller on behalf of Buttner and herself. “I think we both feel very lucky. We’ve worked in a lot of different health settings — outpatient, inpatient — and this is a really special place, with an incredible team really doing serving the community, taking care of each other. It’s just been an honor to work with this team at the clinic.”
