A long-time advocate for rural health care in this region celebrated his 40th year of work this week.

Dr. Richard Mulder of Ivanhoe has practiced medicine in this region for 40 years. He has devoted much of the past 40 years treating the aches and pains of patients.

Still, Mulder found time to serve the region as a state legislator and was often the "go-to-guy" on rural health care issues and rural issues in general.

The Independent could count on Mulder for an opinion, many of them candid, and for information in various news stories.

Mulder understands the need to educate St. Paul lawmakers and Washington, D.C. lawmakers about the particulars of health care needs in rural America.

A hospital was not only a place to treat sick folks, it was an economic engine as it employed many people in a particular community.

Certainly, there were those who agreed and disagreed with Mulder, and at times it was even shown on this newspaper's editorial page.

But agree or disagree with Mulder over the years, one thing is certain - he is a rural doctor with a family practice who believed in the importance of quality care and access to such care in rural communities.

A doctor who spends 40 years practicing in a community of about 1,000 in one of the least populated counties in Minnesota will be unheard of in the future.

Mulder's rural practice has provided him with a respectable quality of life. Yet, the practice has also meant time away from his family, and he likely could have made more money practicing with other doctors or specializing in a particular field of medicine.

We are still fortunate in this region. We have clinics and hospitals in Tyler, Canby, Hendricks and other cities. We have doctors willing to practice in those cities as well as Tracy, Marshall, Slayton, Granite Falls and other smaller communities. Affiliated Community Medical Center clinic has added to its staff of doctors in Marshall over the past several years.

Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center has also added doctors including a new psychiatrist, which even in a city of nearly 13,000, is a huge find.

Doctors are still attracted to a rural way of life. Some return to be closer to family and friends who may live in the region or just a few hours away. Doctors may still want the pace and variety a small hospital or practice can give them.

But those such as Mulder and those before him, the doctors who delivered us and then our own babies and perhaps our grandkids, we won't see them again.