NEWTON, KS | By Kansan Staff |
Original article can be found at: http://www.thekansan.com/
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As a physician, Timothy Wiens is a member of a “service profession” – and life reflects that value of service. He helped found Health Ministries in Newton, an organization dedicated to helping get people medical care despite their ability to pay or have insurance that has grown into the largest primary care provider in Harvey County.
Weins will be honored for his life of service this spring, named Bethel College’s 2018 Outstanding Alumnus Award winner.
The Bethel College Alumni Association gives the Outstanding Alumnus Award on the basis of character and citizenship, service to church/community or college, or other outstanding achievements, honors and recognition. Wiens will receive the award and be honored along with other alumni award winners at the annual Alumni Banquet, June 3 at noon in Memorial Hall.
He may be best known in the community for being one of the organizing founders of Health Ministries in Newton, as a clinic that provided health-care access to those without insurance or other means.
Health Ministries Clinic is now a Federally-Qualified Health Center (FQHC) serving the Newton community and surrounding counties. It continues to offer medical, dental, mental health and pharmacy services on a sliding fee scale for people without insurance, while also accepting Medicare, Medicaid/KanCare and most health insurances.
Wiens graduated from Bethel in 1977, with majors in chemistry and physics and a minor in mathematics.
However, he didn’t go directly to medical school.
Instead, he studied at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, for a year, was a community worker at Welcome Inn in Hamilton, Ontario, through Mennonite Voluntary Service, for three years, 1978-81, and did a chaplaincy internship at Wesley Medical Center, Wichita, in the summer of 1981, before entering the University of Kansas School of Medicine that fall.
After a residency through Wesley Family Medicine in Wichita (earning the Resident Teacher Award in 1988), Wiens started practice as a family physician in Newton in 1988.
He said he had not been practicing medicine long when he recognized the need for services for people in the community who were unable to afford “traditional” access. Wiens was one of the organizing founders of Health Ministries Clinic in 1991. Over the next 10 years, he served as a board member and as volunteer medical director and health-care provider.
He continued to work as a family physician in Newton, while from 2001 on volunteering monthly as a provider for Health Ministries. Last year, he began as a salaried staff provider after Health Ministries took over ownership and operation of the former Via Christi Clinic in Newton.
Wiens said volunteer service has been and remains an important part of his life and work.
He and his wife, Katherine Burkey Wiens, participated in CAMP (Central American [refugee] Mission Project) in the late 1980s, providing housing for refugees from social and political turmoil.
Tim and Kathy Wiens were among those who started New Creation Preschool at New Creation Fellowship, a Mennonite church in Newton.
Though Wiens currently attends Bethel College Mennonite Church, he has many years of involvement at First Mennonite Church in Newton. He served at various times as a youth sponsor, children’s Sunday school teacher, Outreach Commission member, and a founder and former leader of the “Friends of Bethel” committee and the LGBTQ Allies group at First Mennonite.
He made short-term medical mission trips to Thailand in 2009 and 2012, and to Haiti in 2010. Wiens was also a volunteer preceptor for UK School of Medicine-Wichita from 2015-17.
Kathy and Tim Wiens received the Journey Award from Everence Financial in 2013, given annually to an individual or couple who serve as role models of responsible stewardship of resources – personal time, money and talent as well as wider care for creation and the earth.
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