Our Story
The History of Southern Colorado Clinic
Over 40 years ago (1969) three young physicians were finishing their post graduate residency at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit Michigan and contemplating their future. These doctors, Carl E. Bartecchi, MD, Charles A. Hanson, MD, and Charles F. Salerno, MD shared a common vision to start a multi-specialty clinic somewhere in the United States. Fortunately the founders of Southern Colorado Clinic selected Pueblo, Colorado.
In the late 1960’s Pueblo West was being heavily marketed with chartered flights from Midwest and Eastern cities as a means to entice people to move to Pueblo, Colorado. It was in one of these newspaper ads that got the attention of these doctors who flew to Pueblo in 1969. What they found was a city sorely in need of more primary and local specialty care and after that visit they shared their dream with four other doctors. A few months later a second flight to Pueblo sealed the deal and the vision of starting a multi-specialty clinic in Pueblo became the dream of seven doctors.
The Clinic became a reality by the summer of 1970 with the first intrepid physicians, Dr. Carl Bartecchi, Dr. Rodney Dwyer and Dr. Larry Walls setting up practice. The second wave of pioneers came in 1971 and included Dr. Charles Bedard, Dr. Val Cichon and Dr. Charles Salerno. Then in the summer of 1972 Dr. Charles Hanson, Dr. Klaus Anselm and Dr. Muryl Laman arrived, rounding out the original seven founders. All the above doctors trained at the Henry Ford Hospital, except for Dr. Laman who trained at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Harold Frost, chairman of the Orthopedics Department at Henry Ford Hospital, joined the group in 1973.
In the first twenty years of business the Clinic grew to twenty five physicians, two medical facilities, an Urgent Care and started an HMO insurance company. Recruiting physicians to the Clinic has been a long-term process over the past 40 years and more than 120 doctors of varying specialties have come to serve Pueblo and southern Colorado’s population because of the Clinic.
The Clinic is very proud to have served the people of Pueblo and southern Colorado with excellent medical care all these years, as well as going forward into the future.
