Building Strong Bones & Healthy Families with Rikki Schaefer—Lifestyle Medicine PA in Sainte Genevieve—the NEW Old School.
- Thomas Smugala
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 16 hours ago
The 573 Magazine was founded on the premise that we all need to embrace a healthy, active lifestyle. If not for a healthier body, certainly using all our region has to offer in the way of parks, rivers, hiking…keeps one's mind healthy as well.
Establishing a healthy lifestyle during youth lays the essential foundation for strong bones, flexible joints, and pain-free mobility as we age. Orthopedic health—encompassing bones, joints, muscles, and connective tissues—peaks around age 30. After this, natural bone density declines, making early preventive habits critical for reducing the risk of osteoporosis, arthritis, fractures, and chronic back pain.
Rikki Schaefer on the family farm.
Regular weight-bearing exercises, such as running, jumping, resistance training, and sports, in adolescence and early adulthood stimulate bone growth and increase peak bone mass. Nutrient-rich diets high in calcium, vitamin D, protein, and anti-inflammatory foods like leafy greens, fatty fish, and nuts build resilient skeletal structures.
Conversely, sitting, poor nutrition, smoking, alcohol, and stress without recovery accelerate wear-and-tear—you don’t want that. Recently, we met up with a woman who knows a lot about the good-bones subject, and she lives a healthy bone lifestyle with her family.
Good orthopedic health should begin early in life.
My name is Rikki Schaefer. I am 35 years old. My parents are Mike and Kris Ritter, and my siblings are Jordan Ritter and Mariah Roth. I was born and raised in Sainte Genevieve. I graduated from Sainte Genevieve High School in 2009. I attended Missouri State University, where I received my bachelor's degree in exercise science and graduated in 2012. I then attended St. Louis University physician assistant program and graduated in 2014. I have worked in family medicine for 11 1/2 years. I became certified in lifestyle medicine as a way to help our community set a strong foundation of their health. The goal is to try to help work on lifestyle changes to help prevent or reverse chronic disease.
It is your job as a parent to give your children every advantage for a long healthy life.
Whole grains and vegetables help one's body and bones grow strong.
I met my husband, Kyle Schaefer, in August 2007, and we are high school sweethearts. We were married on January 4, 2014. We moved back home in 2017 when I was hired at Sainte Genevieve County Memorial Hospital to do primary care in Bloomsdale. We have three children. Harper Schaefer, who is 9 years old; Elliott Schaefer, who is 5 years old; and Ty Schaefer, who is 19 months old.
I would say my family is very busy, and we don’t sit still very long. We love taking trips and going to do things. Whether it’s going to Disney World, which we have been probably eight times in the last nine years, camping, boating, little league sports, or playing on the farms and taking side-by-side rides or horseback riding.
Rikki tells all!
We love being home close to our family and friends. There probably isn’t a week that we don’t see either Rick and Marcia Schaefer or my family and do things with them. We are very involved in our church, which is the First Presbyterian Church of Sainte Genevieve.
We love our hometown! We want our kids to grow up knowing the same town we grew up in. It’s wonderful being so close to family and friends. It’s literally a town where you know someone every time you go out. Our kids play outdoor games with the neighbors or cousins. It’s truly God's country in this town.
We want our kids to grow up knowing the same town we grew up in.
The perfect s'moore.
A healthy diet leaves room for fun stuff on occations.
Our Family farm is known as Breig Farms, which was founded in 1890 and is a century farm. My papa (Bob Breig), dad, brother, and godson (Leo Gegg) currently work the family farm. My mom also makes an appearance during hay season. They plant and harvest corn, wheat, and beans. The kids love taking combine rides with great papa or seeing all the other John Deere equipment out working. They also raise cattle with an additional branding: my brother's JR Cattle Co. We try to camp at the farm twice a year and let the kids feed the cows or even take a quick trip down to bottle-feed a calf. It’s amazing watching all the work go into this farm and having a strong appreciation for food from the table. I would most definitely say my work ethic comes from the exposure. These people work the sun up and down and are always on call for those cows.
A toasted marshmallow is never too burnt!
The mechanics of a s'moore—future engineer.
My healthy lifestyle has been most contributed to by my upbringing. My mom routinely had a home-cooked meal on the table almost every night. We always had a garden that we picked at as kids. I would say as a kid, picking the garden during the summer, I dreaded it. As an adult, I have a huge appreciation for it. To know exactly where your food comes from and what’s in it is something I took for granted. My family picks sweet corn and freezes it up for the year. I have also learned how to can the items we pick from the garden and make salsa, pizza sauce, or spaghetti sauce. My mother-in-law and I also learned to make blackberry jelly from wild blackberries we picked on their farm. The beef we get is raised on our farm. It’s incredible to see the work that goes into the food we eat, and we have a stronger appreciation for it.
In high school, I was a three-sport athlete: all-state for volleyball and played baseball and ran track. My mom was a huge contributor in my drive for a healthy lifestyle. She would wake me up early in the morning to run, or she would go work out early in the morning. She always encouraged us to be physically active. Both my parents played sand volleyball and softball for years. My dad was also a hard blue-collar worker. So I was raised to work hard, lend a hand, and be active.
Our team at SGCMH orthopedics is fantastic and with all the latest.
Today, Rikki Schaefer, PA-C, DipACLM is taking on orthopedics at SGCMH and happy to be there—actually, she's happy everywhere!
When I was going into my freshman year of high school during basketball season, I had managed to tear both meniscus during basketball season and underwent bilateral knee arthroscopy for my meniscus. After that injury, I spent several weeks in physical therapy rehabbing from the injury. That was really when I had my first exposure to healthcare. I also recall, in high school, seeing the current orthopedic nurse practitioner at Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital, Holly Huelskamp, FNP-BC on the sidelines of football games. I thought that seemed like such a cool job, and I want to do something like that with sports. I thought for years I was going to go to physical therapy based on my personal exposure to PT. I even shadowed our local physical therapist, Tyler Browne, and made my school choice based on a career in physical therapy. I then shadowed a physician assistant in orthopedics in St. Louis to better understand the orthopedic conditions and surgeries I would see as a physical therapist. I found that I absolutely loved my experience there and quickly changed my course to become a physician assistant, or now a physician associate. I worked for several years as a CNA, trying to gain enough healthcare experience to apply to the only school I could based on my timeline to graduate in healthcare experience hours, which was SLU. I was blessed with an initial admission into the program. I did two rotations in orthopedics as I thought that would be my landing spot when I graduated. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a job right outside of school without travel or experience, so I worked in family practice at Sparta Hospital and then transitioned to our hometown in 2017.
...I am happy to move forward, especially in our hometown.
I have worked at SGCMH for the last 9 1/2 years in family practice, and it has been very rewarding to be in this position and treat my hometown community. This past year, I was approached by our CEO, Steve Henson, whom I have admired for years, about taking on orthopedics as Holly Huelskamp works her way toward retirement. It has been a long-time dream, and I am happy to move forward, especially in our hometown. I will be working with our hard-working community—farmers, laborers, and businesses and our athletes. Keeping our community moving and supporting their orthopedic needs is truly a dream.
Get Out There! Visit somewhere. Improve your health. Go for a hike. Sing at a spring. Do something. Do anything. Get out there, that sunken sofa won't miss you—time's a-wasting!
—Pics and words by Supreme Leader Smugala
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