Rochester Health Center

Contact us

235 South Main Street

Rochester, VT 05767

Phone (802) 767-3704

Fax (802) 767-3405

Our providers

Mark Jewett, MD

Maria Cabri, APRN

Office hours

Monday 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Tuesday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Wednesday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Thursday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

For emergency care after office hours, please call
Gifford Medical Center at
(802) 728-7000.

The Rochester Health Center provides essential primary health care in a convenient main street location to the people of Rochester and beyond. The staff works as a team to attend to your health care needs. Office hours are by appointment. The health center makes every attempt to schedule your appointment with your provider, but if the situation is urgent, you will be given the next available appointment.

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Learn more about our story

The Rochester Health Center:

A 'safety net' and a friend

The name and location of the Rochester Health Center have changed throughout the years. It was the Green Valley Health Center for a time and then Gifford Valley Health Center. It took up residence first in what is now an apartment building located in front of the health center and then the Park House assisted living facility before its current location was built with the help of local couple Barb and Marv Harvey in 1996.

But in this ever-changing world there have also been some remarkable constants to the small clinic with just two exam rooms. Gifford’s commitment to providing local care in Rochester and the community’s desire to have that care are two. The caregivers inside the cozy, white one-story South Main Street health center are three others.

For the 33 years the RochesterHealth Center has been treating area residents, the smiling face greeting patients throughout all that time has been that of Dawn Beriau, a Rochester resident who was just 21 when the health center opened.

That was in 1976. Drs. Mark Jewett, Lou DiNicola and Milt Fowler started the health center. “Before that there wasn’t any doctor in this community. That’s why there was a need,” says Dr. Jewett, who 33 years later is also still at the health center.

He’s spent a few years away. Others, including Drs. DiNicola and Fowler who remain with Gifford, have also rotated through. In fact, a new provider, adult nurse practitioner Maria Cabri, has joined the health center this year.

But the slower pace of a community clinic, and the long-standing relationships with patients, have lured Dr. Jewett back.

“It’s just a nice setup with one doctor, one secretary and one nurse,” says Dr. Jewett, who works three days a week at the health center. Maria’s now there on a fourth day. “We can spend more time with patients … getting to know the patient and exploring what they’re concerned about.”

Working along side Dr. Jewett, Maria and Dawn is registered nurse Gail Proctor. Gail celebrated 20 years with the health center in 2008, lives across the street and offers foot clinics for older patients and draws patients’ blood in addition to her work with Dr. Jewett and now Maria.

The center meets Rochester, Hancock, Granville, Stockbridge and Pittsfield area residents’ needs for primary care. But think colds, blood pressure checks and toenail clippings are all the seemingly serene center treats, and you’d be mistaken.

“Once every couple of months, we have a severe laceration or chest pain,” Dawn says.

There was the father who brought his son straight from the farm field on a Friday afternoon, announced with no particular vigor that “We’ve got an emergency here,” and then took a seat in the waiting room. Strolling through the door behind him was a young man with one arm nearly severed off.

Dawn, now the clinic’s office manager, calls the health center “a comfort to residents” and “a safety net” for community members.

Read one patient's story

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Jean 'Terry' Wilson

The 'war bride' turned Rochester resident has been
receiving care at her local health center for 25-plus years

Jean “Terry” Wilson is a self-described “war bride.” A member of the British Navy, Terry met her husband, a U.S. Army soldier, during World War II. The couple moved to Vermont in 1946 following the end of the war.

He worked in a former plywood factory in Hancock, but following his death at just age 53, Terry moved out of the area, to live with a son in New Jersey.

Vermont called Terry back, however. “I loved it. I have very fond memories and very good friends here,” says Terry.

Among those friends are the caregivers at the Rochester Health Center.

“They’re all lovely, wonderful people. I think they do a magnificent job,” says Terry, who has been receiving her care at the Rochester Health Center since returning to Hancock more than 25 years ago in 1983.

She goes for routine checkups and blood work. She calls her doctor, internal medicine physician Mark Jewett, a quiet and compassionate caregiver.

“He makes you feel very comfortable. He listens to you. He makes you feel he cares,” she says.

And he saved her life, or at least that is how Terry sees it.

In 1995, Terry had a massive heart attack. It was Dr. Jewett who happened to be working in the Gifford Emergency Department and it was Dr. Jewett who called a DHART rescue helicopter for her.

She was transported to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for care, and lived. “The doctor (at Dartmouth) said it was a miracle, and I guess I believe in them.”

When we first caught up with Terry at the Rochester Health Center last year, her daughter, Mary Cook of Ohio, was with her. She was staying with her mother during an illness, but planned to return to Ohio soon.

“It’s very reassuring (to know) she’s got a good doctor here, a good hospital at Gifford and good friends,” Mary told us.

Terry, now 86 and living at the Park House in Rochester, agrees. She still visits the Rochester Health Center regularly and knows Gifford is also there in an emergency.