11:51 a.m. - GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) - A family doctor from Hettinger is the new chairman of the University of North Dakota medical school's family medicine department.

Dr. Robert Beattie, a UND alumnus, will start his new job Jan. 1.

"As a physician practicing rural family medicine, I believe I will bring a commonsense approach to the issues facing the department in its efforts to train physicians for North Dakota," Beattie said in a statement.

He will succeed Dr. Elizabeth Burns, who resigned last month. Dr. C. Milton Smith, the director of the medical school's family medicine residency program in Minot, will serve as interim chairman through Dec. 31.

Beattie, a native of Garrison, is chief of the family medicine and obstetrics-gynecology services and chief of staff at West River Regional Medical Center in Hettinger. He is finishing his second year as president of the North Dakota Medical Association.

He and his wife, Susan, a registered nurse, have seven children.

UND said Burns will remain on the medical school faculty as a professor and director of a national women's health program.