News & Events

New faces are joining the staff at Mountrail County Health Center, including a new director of nursing and a new nurse practitioner. April Warren started as a new DON on the hospital side last month. A familiar face, Carol Hynek, is now a new nurse practitioner at the facility.

April Warren started on August 21 and brings a wide range of experience to the job. With a doctorate in organizational leadership, she has been an FNP since 2008. She has worked in emergency medicine, mental/behavioral health and psychiatry. She also founded a private practice in Minot, which she operated for seven years before closing the practice in 2020 because of covid.

She was the department chair of the nursing program at MSU and worked as a nurse practitioner with inpatient psychiatry at Trinity Health. She also was an advanced practice provider and behavioral health division lead. She says that she has always had two or three jobs at a time until now.

Coming to MCHC, she says she is passionate about nursing and clinical excellence. She has a love for rural health. A colleague had reached out to her about the open position and asked if she would be willing to consider the job. While she was not looking for a change, she says that she visited with MCHC and made the decision. She said that she loved the people and the facility’s commitment to the community in providing the best healthcare.

Looking at her job, she says that healthcare is a challenge right now, including staffing crises everywhere. That is where she says rural healthcare becomes even more important, sharing the commitment to clinical excellence and providing comprehensive quality care to the residents of Stanley and the surrounding areas.

She and her husband, Chad, live between Minot and Burlington. Chad is a federal contractor on the Minot Air Force Base and retired military. They have two daughters, Emily and Alaina. Both daughters attend UND and the couple have been empty nesters as of August 18.

In her free time, she says she loves to fish and go to the lake. She also loves to visit family in the UP of Michigan, where her husband calls home. Her parents live in Bismarck.

Carol Hynek will be working in the clinic and ER as a nurse practitioner, having started on August 23. She says that she will be working on her schedule as she continues her facility training, but will be seeing patients on a part-time basis in the clinic.

Hynek was an RN for 15 years, having only worked at MCHC as an RN. She has worn many hats over the years, including at the hospital and nursing home. She has been the care coordinator at the nursing home. She has assisted Dr. Williams with podiatry surgeries. She also helped with the cardiac rehab and taught the medication assistance course. When the facility implemented electronic health records, she was the clinical lead.

Hynek decided to go back to school and earned her doctorate degree in nursing practice and family nurse practitioner from the University of Mary, graduating in April of 2023. She says that she always wanted to advance her education to this level and also wanted to come back to Stanley to practice as this is home.

She too looks at the struggle of staffing rural healthcare. She says that her goal is to provide quality care to the rural residents in the community and surrounding area. Advancing her education, she says, is the best way she could do that and serve the people of the community.

Growing up in Kerkhoven, MN, she met her husband, Blair, at NDSU. The couple has lived in Stanley for the past fifteen years. They have five children, Jack, Ben, Jacob, Abe and Ella. Her hobbies include gardening, outdoor activities and traveling, especially to the mountains. They also include chasing after her five children and all of their activities.

Hynek says that she is excited about returning to MCHC. She says it is a great environment with great staff and a positive attitude. She is excited to work with the clinical staff throughout the facility. As a new provider, she is learning from the current providers. She says as she continues to grow and become more confident as a provider, she looks forward to providing high quality, evidence based care to our rural population. “We are always looking to improve the care we give at MCMC”, says Steph Everett. CEO. “I am thrilled to have April and Carol join our team. This allows us to become even stronger in our goal of providing well-rounded, truly amazing Healthcare for Mountrail County and beyond.”

Tara Schaefer-Nygaard is now offering mental health therapy services at the Mountrail County Health Center once a week. Originally from Minot, she has a Master of Social Work and is a licensed clinical social worker. She received her Bachelors in Social Work from Minot State University in 2002 and her masters from Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho in 2012.

She says that being a helper is a family thing. She grew up in a large family and her parents always described her as a helper. She began her career in social work working with children and families and says that she knew that she could do more than just casework. She worked in various ways with social work including foster care case management, the home and community based services program, as well as the foster to adoptions programs and infant development.

It was while she was working with infant development that it struck her that she was capable of doing more and needed to do that. Another factor was when they returned to Minot and she had the opportunity to work at the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. That, she says, was eye opening.

While there she realized that it was important to be equipped for expanding knowledge, tackling different behavior issues, and fine tuning the skills. As a clinical team member, it sparked her to learn more. She then moved on to working at the Minot Air Force Base.

It was during this time that she became certified in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. This is an evidence based trauma therapy that helps clients work through not only trauma, but also depression, anxiety, and other disorders.

She describes it as an amazing process to experience with a person. It is transformational for them to come through to the other side of a trauma and those symptoms to not have that power over them any longer. There is, she says, a resonance that will happen when they sense where it is held, blocked or stored, and then see the relief and physical change in the person. It is very powerful, she also says it almost feels selfish to feel rewarded after being a part of this and see them take control over the things that have controlled them.

The decision to go into private practice, she says, came when she decided it was time to be her own boss, choosing to set her own guidelines on how she wanted to work. That transition came in mid-October of last year. She opened New Hope Counseling in November of 2018, seeing a limited number of patients per week, but decided to make the change to full-time.

She says that she recognized the limited number of professionals available and that it was even more challenging and difficult for clients in rural communities. She says that she was able to make the choice to expand to a rural outreach clinic. She reached out to Mountrail County Health Center in Stanley and the process began. Her first day in Stanley was Wednesday, Feb. 1.

She chose Wednesdays as her one day per week because there are fewer holidays in the middle of the week. That means less need to reschedule appointments for clients. The other four days of the week are spent at her office in Minot.

Patients are able to self-refer to her clinic. They can also be referred by their primary care physician, a school, law enforcement or a social worker. Most insurance companies will cover therapy, depending on the patient’s coverage plan.

As therapy becomes more accepted, she says her goal is to help patients focus on their internal resiliency, helping them to build the skills to get through their challenges and difficult times. That includes helping them learn how to help themselves, sit with the discomfort knowing that when it resolves they will be okay so they can move through to the other side.

While she can work with younger children depending on the circumstances, she prefers to work with patients ages ten and up. The majority of her experience is with children ages ten and up, adults and family therapy.

Her love for what she does is apparent, saying that therapists need to love what they do. There can be challenging cases and difficult things to hear, but the best part is seeing patients heal and be part of that journey. She says that it is an honor to walk alongside them and earn that trust. The biggest honor, she says, is to have that trust.

Tara has also just been notified that she has been nominated to be a member of the Western Area Health Education Advisory Board. That board works with area colleges to get North Dakota residents back and into rural areas. She says it is another way she can impact bringing more providers to rural communities.

Tara’s husband, Kurt, is an oil gauger at Kinder-Morgan and a retired Army veteran. Between them, they have five children that all live in North Dakota and they are expecting their first grandchild in July. Kurt is originally from the Watford City area and they met after he retired from the Army and returned to North Dakota.

In their free time, they enjoy camping. They also enjoy spending time with family. Family time is a primary focus for them.

“This has been almost a decade in the making,” says Steph Everett, CEO of the Mountrail County Medical Center. “Janel and I have been working every angle to find mental health providers for our clinic.  It’s a true blessing we can bring Tara in once a week. And there is more to come with this Specialist line in the near future for MCMC!” You can schedule appointments with Tara Schaefer-Nygaard by contacting Mountrail County Health Center at 628-2505.