NEW ULM – New Ulm Medical Center announced Friday it is opening a new eye clinic, headed by Dr. Natalia Kramarevsky.

The Medical Center is purchasing the practice of Dr. Richard Dannenberg, an ophthalmologist who owns New Ulm Eye Center and Optical, and will be incorporating the eye clinic in NUMC’s new clinic project that will be completed in early January. Dannenberg, who has practiced in New Ulm for 31 years, is planning to retire.

“New Ulm Medical Center is partnering with Dr. Dannenberg to ensure there will be no gap in ophthalmology care in our community when he retires,” said Toby Freier, president of New Ulm Medical Center.

Dannenberg’s office will remain open at his location near Hy-Vee at 2023 S. Broadway until Jan. 6, and it will operate with its current patients without change until that date. He will continue all meetings, appointments and surgeries he currently offers.

Dannenberg’s patients will see no change in the transition except they will be treated after Jan. 6 at the New Ulm Medical Center’s new eye clinic and Dr. Natalia Kramarevsky will take over the appointments.

Patients not interested in transferring to the NUMC new eye clinic will be given their medical information and allowed to seek a new clinic of their choosing.

The clinic will be run by Dr. Kramarevsky, an ophthalmologist who comes to New Ulm from Virginia Beach, Va., but who completed her residency in ophthalmology at the University of Minnesota, then worked as an ophthalmologist at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. During that time she was also associated with the Phillips Eye Institute, which is part of Allina Health, owner of New Ulm Medical Center.

Kramarevsky will be offering typical eye care services with a staff of opticians. She also specializes in more complex treatments , such as eye care for diabetics, cataracts, glaucoma, corneal care, surface disease, refractive surgery and minor eyelid procedures.

“The fact that I worked at the U of M and the Phillips Eye Center means I know all those people. If there is a need for a referral, I know just who to call,” said Kramarevsky.

Freier said the clinic is excited to integrate this service into the clinic. While Dannenberg works in cooperation with the New Ulm Physicians Group and uses the hospital’s facilities for surgeries, he has maintained a private practice. Having the facilities on the clinic campus and having Kramarevsky as part of the medical staff means there will be a full integration among doctors, and of the patients’ eye records in their clinic medical records.

Until the completion of the clinic project, Kramarevsky is seeing patients at the clinic in a temporary space.

Kramarevsky, 47, was born in the former Soviet Union. She refused to adopt to communist enforcement in the 1980s, so she was not allowed to attend medical school. She went to nursing school instead. In the early 1990s, she and her husband Nick and their infant daughter moved to the Seattle area, where she entered the University of Washington, earning her undergraduate degree in molecular biology. She attended the University of Washington Medical School, graduating in 1990. She interned at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, then came to the University of Minnesota for her residency in ophthalmology.

(Information from the Sept. 2 “Health” Section was used in this article.)