COOK- Scenic Rivers Health Services Medical Clinic has been expanding, and they recently added two new medical care providers to the team at the Cook Medical Clinic. Coming aboard are Certified Nurse Practitioner Rachel Beldo and Dr. Eric Elleby.

Although new to the clinic, Rachel Beldo, CNP, is no stranger to the area, having grown up in Eveleth where she graduated high school in 2003. She went on to obtain her RN at the College of St. Scholastica, subsequently working at the Mayo in Rochester for three years. Beldo then applied to the University of Minnesota to work on her Doctor of Nursing Practice. She then went back to the Mayo for four years, working in family medicine, before making the journey back north.

“I really wanted to move back to be closer to my family,” she said. “I also wanted to stay in family medicine. I enjoy getting to know families and wanted to build those relationships.” When she is not working, she enjoys time spent with family on Lake Vermilion.

Also making the trek north, Dr. Eric Elleby hails from the small town of Hayward, located in southern Minnesota where he grew up with a tight-knit family on a dairy farm. After high school, he went on to the University of Illinois-School of Medicine, where he majored in organic chemistry. He graduated in 2014. Elleby then continued on to Wisconsin, completing his residency with the La Crosse-Mayo Family Residency Program. The three-year residency program focuses on family medicine. “I like rural medicine, out-patient care, and ER.” Although he has no family with him in the area, he said, “I wanted to be up north...I like fishing, the outdoors, hockey, skiing…that’s why I’m here.”