The foundation for the two-story Mayo Resource Center is rising behind the east side of Mayo Regional Hospital this summer.

“This project responds to the well-identified space needs as we continue to transition from inpatient to outpatient care,’’ said Chief Executive Officer Ralph Gabarro at the May 19 groundbreaking ceremony. “It will provide the facilities to help meet our region’s needs in the future, and also give our caregivers the space they need to do their jobs.”

When Mayo Regional Hospital opened 23 years ago, the 46-bed acute-care hospital was primarily an inpatient facility. Since that time, outpatient services have grown to 60% of total hospital revenues. The expansion/renovation project will provide added space and concentrate all outpatient services on the first floor.

expansion and renovation is being undertaken as a design/build project by DiGiorgio Associates Inc. architects and its construction subsidiary, Monitor Builders. Work to date has involved the removal of the canopy over the Emergency Room entrance, and site preparation and foundation work by Haley Construction of Sangerville.

The biggest impact on the public so far has been the closing off of the hospital’s Emergency Room entrance prior to building a new, state-of-the-art Emergency Department. The ER will remain fully operational throughout construction, but access to the hospital for all ambulances, patients and visitors is through the front entrance and main lobby until further notice.

Phase I carries a total project cost of $6.3 million and will concentrate on three major areas: 5,500 square feet of new construction for an enlarged Emergency Department; 13,000 square feet of new construction for a two story Mayo Resource Building that will include Physical Therapy, Occupational Health, conference and education space, medical records, medical library, business office and administration; and 9,500 square feet of renovation on the hospital’s first and second floors, affecting Cardiopulmonary Services, Radiology, entry lobby, patient registration, public areas and the Obstetrics Department.

Phase II will be scheduled after Phase I is completed, at an additional cost estimated at $2 million. It will construct a 5,500-square-foot addition for a new Ambulatory Surgical Unit, and renovate 3,000 square feet for Surgical Services, Mammography and Pharmacy.

The expansion is the largest healthcare construction project in Piscataquis County history. Financing will be through bonds issued by the Maine Municipal Bond Bank, and Mayo’s ongoing Capital Campaign.

Mayo and Scouting originally looked at establishing a Medical Exploring program at the hospital, where older youths could learn about healthcare careers of potential interest to them. As the group begin to form in June, however, new members opted instead for Scouting’s Venturing program.

"The focus in Exploring is more into career exploration, but while Venturing has a career component, it also stresses outdoor activities and youth leadership development. There seemed to be more programming flexibility with Venturing,” said Brian Mullis, manager of Mayo’s Emergency Medical Service.

Mayo EMS serves as host of the Venturers, with meetings held at the new ambulance garage and supervised by EMS members such as Mullis and Keith Kendall, Emergency Medical Technician-Intermediate.

But while adults help out, the nine members of Venturer Crew 455 run their own show. Members elect their officers, decide on group activities, raise their own funds.

The Venturers are all girls so far -- “We want to recruit some boys,” they hasten to add -- and they attend Foxcroft Academy and Penquis Valley High School. The program is also open to students at Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford, Dexter Regional High School, and Central High School in Corinth.

The members -- Linda Coburn and Sonja Salley of Milo, Meggin Beaulieu of Brownville, Allie Thibodeau, Jenn Rollins, Heidi Roberts, Sara MacAlister, Jessica Arbis and Emily Winsley of Dover-Foxcroft -- heard of the program through their school guidance directors, who helped identify students who were interested in healthcare careers.

Mayo’s involvement with Venturing is part of a long-term strategy to raise awareness among high school-age students as to the healthcare employment opportunities available in the region. It is ironic that many high school graduates leave the area because of a perception that few high-paying jobs exist locally. At the same time, there are many good jobs that go unfilled at Mayo and other healthcare facilities due to lack of qualified applicants.

Many of the Venturers are considering healthcare careers, and the program allows them to sample the possibilities. Members are getting a taste this summer of wilderness rescue training and learning CPR.

Non medical activities include hiking up Borestone Mt., conducting a bottle drive to raise money for uniform shirts, and scheduling a trip to Scouting’s Camp Roosevelt for Venturer leadership training.

Mayo EMS Venturer Crew 455 hopes to recruit more members from area high schools as the new school year opens. Those interested should call Mayo EMS at 564-4205.

Dr. Berry, the senior member of Mayo Regional Hospital’s medical staff and its only member to have worked at the “old” Mayo Memorial Hospital, resigned from the active medical staff on July 1. He remains on the hospital’s courtesy staff and will continue his outpatient clinic practice at Guilford Medical Associates into the fall, when Mayo intends to have a replacement physician in Guilford.

“It’s been a rewarding experience, but I want to do a few more things before my practice career winds down in 5-10 years,” said Dr. Berry, 55. “I will be getting more time off now and the freedom to do more things with my time.”

Because he is no longer on Mayo’s active staff, Dr. Berry spends less time in the hospital, no longer has night and weekend call obligations, and is not required to participate in medical staff committees.

“It gets harder as you age to take call,” he observed.

Dr. Berry will continue his local medical connection, at least for the near term. Besides seeing patients in Guilford, he will remain active with Mayo’s Substance Abuse Treatment Program, fill in occasionally in Mayo’s Emergency Department and at the Charleston Correctional Facility, and continue teaching one day each week in the Family Practice Residency Program at Eastern Maine Medical Center.

He’ll also do some traveling. In late September, Dr. Berry will serve as ship’s doctor on a nature cruise to Greenland. From Thanksgiving through Christmas, he’ll work in the health clinic on an Indian reservation in northern California.

“I’m also interested in doing some work abroad, which is hard to do when you’re working full time in Guilford,” he added. Working abroad would allow Dr. Berry to brush up his foreign language skills -- he’s fluent in Russian and Spanish.

In the long term, Dr. Berry may end up relocating outside of the Dover-Foxcroft area.

“I may eventually end up with another full-time job that would take me elsewhere, or teach full time in a residency program, but for the time being I’m staying here and will do a variety of things,” he said.

That variety will include Dr. Berry’s non-medical interests. He is a talented musician who plays the piano, organ (at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Sangerville) and flute, and is now taking cello lessons. He is an avid reader “with a stack of books I desperately want to get to.

“Having other interests really helps you be a better doctor by being able to relate better to your patients,” he said.

The human side of medicine is what attracted Dr. Berry to family practice.

Berry attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an undergraduate because of his interest in science, but ended up with a double major in chemistry and humanities.

“When I was finishing up at MIT my interests turned to the humanitarian aspects of science, and I thought the best way to blend the two was to go into family practice. I was influenced by the thought of the country doctors I knew growing up in southern Ohio,” he recalled.

After completing medical school at Temple, Dr. Berry went into practice with his wife, Dr. LeeAnne Berry. The husband-and-wife team lived first in Kentucky, then moved to Dover-Foxcroft in 1975. Although they ended up separating in the late 1980s and Dr. LeeAnne Berry moved away, Dr. Jim Berry has remained a fixture in the Piscataquis County medical community.

The changes he has witnessed in the past 26 years have been profound.

“The practice of medicine when I first came here was entirely different,” he noted. “Back then doctors practiced out of their homes and the patients would knock on their front doors. There was really a personal, country-doc style. It was charming, but it was tough to get physicians to work together then. There’s still a residue from that strong sense of autonomy that existed in the past, yet nothing like it used to be.”

Dr. Berry said the aging of Piscataquis County’s population has been a notable shift.

“Thirty years ago you didn’t see as many old, sick people as you do now. We used to see a lot more young families with children; healthy people without multiple, chronic problems. People are living longer and, hopefully, we’re helping them out.”