When you conjure up thoughts of an emergency room visit, it usually involves a personal experience, late at night, with a heavy dose of pain and anxiety while doctors and nurses try to help you.

Dr. Jim Rice knows those situations well after his tenure as chief of the emergency department at Highline Medical Center.

Rice is choosing to move from acute care to what he calls "less acute," in opening a family practice in Burien. He's known in the sports circle as the "doc on the field" for the Highline Pirates.

Dr. Rice inherited the job from Dr. Alan Gunsul in 1985. He will continue in that role but sparingly.

"I love the kids," he said.

He won't be too far away. His new office is located at 142nd and Ambaum Blvd. S.W.

At an age when lots of people are retiring, Rice is starting a new career in family practice. Dr. Rice is now seeing patients from infants to senior citizens. What was a career in the fast paced trauma center is now one of treating everything from asthma to arthritis. Rice is loving it.

This is more than a local boy makes good story. Rice graduated from Highline High in 1963. He came through when Lou Tice was coaching and Hugh Tice was running wild as a tailback and when Clarence Williams, a superb Renton fullback and future professional football player, was rolling over his Pirates at Highline Stadium.

Rice found out soon enough his academic skills would lead him to Tufts University, near Boston, where he earned his medical degree. He interned at Virginia Mason for a year, before two years of residency at USF-Fresno and one year on the teaching staff.

By 1978, he was ready to take on the challenge of running the ER at Highline, a job he kept until 2002. From then until this year, Dr. Rice worked "locum tenens." He filled in for doctors in ER rooms from Arizona to Grays Harbor. The pay was good but the pace was hectic.

Working ER is nothing like the popular television show. Sure there are split second decisions to be made. Of course there is drama along with grief and success.

During his residency at Fresno, a young man, about 20, stumbled into the ER, collapsing on the floor inside the door. He had a bloody shirt. A little probing beyond the spot of blood led Dr. Rice to recognize that he had been shot. In an emergency the patient is treated first and questioned later. Dr. Rice "cracked his chest," removed the 22 caliber slug, and revived the man, who eventually recovered.

"We can only figure that he was shot near enough to the ER to walk in with the bullet in his heart. "He was so lucky to have been close by," Rice said.

Dr. Rice and wife Nancy have six kids--four boys and two girls. Son Casey is the wrestling coach at Highline. Rice lends an unpaid hand to teach wrestling and to protect them from shoulder and knee injuries much like he does for the Pirate football team.

When Rice played in the '60s, the field was mud and grass during the season. Technology has made it better for the fans, who can read the team numbers, but not necessarily for the athletes.
"Mud and grass was easier on the body," Rice said. There are more injuries now on the artificial turf because the players are bigger, they run faster, and have better traction.

Rice gave up the trauma center in favor of the slower paced world of family medicine. With Dr. Roger Larson and his daughter Margaret, an ARNP, Dr. Rice advises his patients in a different manner today. You don't have to hurry now, Jim has a 10-year plan.

Join Dr Rice and his staff on Jan 21, from noon to 4 p.m. for a "Welcome back." The clinic is located at 14212 Ambaum Blvd. S.W., # 201.