Kindness is the best medicine

My name is Joanie Holm. I am a certified nurse practitioner in Brookings, South Dakota, and I am the person fortunate to have been the life partner of the original Prairie Doc, Richard P. Holm, M.D. Rick and I were married for 40 years before his passing in March 2020.

During those wonderful decades together, if I could point to one powerful action that strengthened our relationship with each other, with our family, our community and with our patients, it would be the act of kindness.

Thankfully, Rick was alive to see the recognition and formalization of kindness as an essential element of med...