Doctor Ann Nora Ehret will be replacing Doctor Rebecca Stroklund as medical director of the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic.

Ehret won’t be an entirely new face around town. She was a doctor at the clinic between 2007 and 2011, when she left to take care of an ailing family member. But she says the plan was always to come back and join her partner, a Bering Sea crab captain.

"I always was going to return to Alaska as soon as that was possible," says Ehret. "We see this as a long-term working commitment."

Which is what clinic director Eileen Conlon Scott was looking for -- someone with experience in the community who would want to stick around. Scott says it took the clinic several months to find their new medical director because they wanted to find just the right person for the job.

"We’ve had people interested in the position," she says. "So we’ve been interviewing for a while, but you know, we just can’t shoot out a figure to anybody and take a warm body."

Ehret’s got plans for the clinic. In addition to offering patients more holistic options, including acupuncture, she wants to focus on improving the clinic’s emergency services and recruiting additional providers. But she also hopes to get input from the community about what improvements they would like to see.

"It’s nice that I have an established base of trust with many people and understand the needs of the community," says Ehret. "So after I get a sense of that and collaborate with my team, then we’ll make the positive changes that need to happen."

Ehret will take over as medical director in November.