Longtime area physician assistant Ron Applebey joins Oaklawn staff

MARSHALL – A family tradition guided Ron Applebey to a path that began in the Michigan town
of Vicksburg and led to a life of service to his neighbors, the needy and the nation.
In time, his broad experiences in the military, mission work and longtime duties as a firefighter
and paramedic led Applebey to embrace the medical field.

Now, with more than 13 years of experience in Michigan as a physician assistant, he has become a
member of the Oaklawn staff, working alongside David M. Byrens, M.D., in Suite 2F of the
Wright Medical Building at 215 E. Mansion St.

The former Byrens Family Practice merged with Oaklawn Medical Group on Jan. 1, and now is
known as Oaklawn Medical Group – Wright Medical Primary Care. Appointments there may be
made by calling (269) 781-2111.

Applebey can trace his career to his family’s legacy of public service.

“My dad and several uncles all had been sailors,” he said. “It was something of a family tradition”
— one that led him to enlist in the U.S. Navy in 1985 after graduation from Vicksburg High
School.

After five years of military service, Applebey returned to his hometown, where a local firefighter
convinced him to join the local fire department. Applebey subsequently obtained credentials as an
emergency medical technician, eventually becoming a paramedic as well.
“Throughout my life, I’ve had a proclivity toward the uniformed services,” he said. “Becoming a
firefighter and paramedic seems to have been an extension of the work that I had been performing
while I was in the military.”

Applebey devoted himself to those duties for 17 years. During that time, he married the former
Kim Olson, a nurse practitioner with whom he shared mission work as members of a medical team
in northern Nicaragua.

“I feel compelled to be of service,” he said. “I’m a fixer and a helper. I like it when other people’s
lives are better. Somewhere along the line that attitude developed in me, and it’s a big part of my
soul.”

The experiences that grew out of that compulsion also motivated Applebey to pursue higher
education, and — augmenting the fact that his sister has a degree in social work — to become the
first man in his family to pursue a professional medical career.

Applebey enrolled at Western Michigan University, earning his bachelor of science degree in
general studies in 2007, following two years later with a master of science degree in medicine in
the university’s physician assistant program.

Applebey now is certified in basic life support by the American Heart Association and is a member
of the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants.

Over the years, Applebey has gained a wide range of experience as a physician assistant working
with health-care organizations based in Ludington, Gaylord and Battle Creek. His work also has
included collaboration with the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department, providing care for inmates
of the county’s detention center.

Ron and Kim Applebey, who have been married for 27 years, continue to live in Vicksburg with
her two children. There, Ron spends his spare time on such home projects as canning food grown
in his vegetable garden, cooking and baking, hunting, writing computer code, developing items
with his 3D printer and operating an amateur radio station under the call letters W8RFA.
Applebey said he appreciates the atmosphere at Oaklawn in much the same way that he has
appreciated the small-town environment where he was raised, and which he also experienced at
Ludington and Gaylord.

“When I communicated with the management staff and walked around the hospital and the clinics,
I found that it had that level of hometown care that I like to provide,” he said. “I really like
working where people know each other and care about each other. Oaklawn was the environment I
was looking for.”