By Sallie L. Veenstra, M.D. at Lee’s Summit Physicians Group

Lee’s Summit Physicians Group started out as St. Joseph Physicians Group in 1979. It was established after a failed attempt at opening a satellite ER for St. Joseph Hospital, and the CEO decided to convert the ER to a satellite office building. Dr. Chernoff moved his internal medicine practice from up north, and 2 pediatricians were hired in 1981, along with another internist. At that time, we had an OB-GYN and ophthalmologist. Dr. Veenstra and Dr. Barnard were the first physicians hired by the group. We were located on Tudor Road, at that time out of the town and in the middle of corn fields!

Growth

The group slowly grew the practice, and in the early 1980’s, St. Joseph Hospital withdrew their support for the group, and we moved to the office building adjacent to the old Lee’s Summit Community Hospital. We changed our name to LSPG in 1984. Dr. Trites came to the group in 1986, and at that time, she and Dr. Veenstra were the only pediatricians in Lee’s Summit. Parents had either driven to the Plaza for care or taken their children to local general practitioners.

With continued growth of the practice, we outgrew our office of nine exam rooms, and started to consider building our building at 1425 NW Blue Parkway. We moved there in 2003, after hiring several more pediatricians. Never dreaming we would outgrow our thirty exam room clinic, we began to look at under-served areas of Lee’s Summit and opened an office at 150 Highway and Ward Road in 2008. Not long afterwards, with continued growth, and realizing there was only one pediatric group in Blue Springs, we opened an office there in 2010, and called it Blue Springs Pediatrics.

Today

We now have close to thirty providers among the three offices, including a number of Nurse Practitioners. We continue to strive to provide the best pediatric care that we can for our patients, and offer extended hours at all three offices to try to meet our patients needs.  Lee’s Summit has been a great place to work for many years!