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Class of 2010
Matt Allen, MD, grew up in Cambridge, Minnesota. He has one younger brother who will graduate from the University of Minnesota this spring with a degree in fisheries management. He has taken their passion for fishing to another level. His father, the director of an alternate learning school, taught him the value of hard work and discipline. From his mother, an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse, he learned compassion and empathy. His mother used to work nights and would come home with fascinating stories from the ICU. Matt was always intrigued by these stories. Sometimes he would be late for school because he was so wrapped up in one of her stories. With seven nurses in the family, there was never any shortage of medical talk growing up. He won’t admit it, but this is probably where his first interest in medicine developed.
Growing up in what was once the small rural town of Cambridge, Matt really learned to appreciate its small town values and ideals. This fostered his current interest in rural medicine. You couldn’t find Matt sitting in any one place for too long. He and his brother were always doing something outdoors. During high school he was on the baseball and swim teams. He took the work ethic and dedication that he had for sports and applied it toward school at Iowa State University. However, it took him a little time to figure how exactly to do that. People always ask how he ended up at ISU. He will always say “because those are my people”, referring to their country up-bringing and laid back attitudes. During his tenure at ISU, his free time was spent tailgating, hunting, or driving up and down I-35 to visit his then girlfriend, Charity, who attended St. Cloud State University.
He eventually married Charity, and he somehow conned her into joining him while he attended medical school at the University of Iowa. Being born a Gopher and raised a Cyclone, it was a difficult transition for him to be called a Hawkeye. He eventually got over it though and could be caught cheering for the Hawks if they were playing a team like the Badgers. Charity graduated from Iowa with her masters in social work and would love to eventually work as an adolescent chemical dependency counselor.
During their free time, Matt and Charity enjoy the outdoors and traveling. Matt has spent time living in Spain and Guatemala, and Charity has spent time living in Prague. Maybe someday they will travel somewhere together. They enjoy camping together, especially in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) or out West. Matt also enjoys hunting and fishing. If you ever want to hear a good story or just need something to put you to sleep, he has plenty of stories to tell and doesn’t need much help to get him started.
Matt is excited to join the United Family Medicine Residency Program. He looks forward to the opportunities he will have to serve a multi-cultural patient population and use his Spanish. The solid program at United also has a strong rural focus, which is important for him since he and Charity eventually want to live in rural Minnesota. The real reason he picked United was “because those are my people”.
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Matthew Allen, MD |
Robby Bershow, M.D., was born in St. Louis Park, MN, and grew up in Chanhassen, MN. (Yes, there is a dinner theater there.) His early years were spent following his older brother around and playing soccer, while later he spent his time playing soccer, following his older brother around, and going to school. At The Blake School, he developed a love for reading, language, history, government, and eating cake (particularly chocolate-chocolate). Over these years, he also cultivated an interest in medicine, despite skills in science and math that still today see him struggling to calculate tips in restaurants.
Robby spent his college years at Harvard University, where he demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for both nocturnal habits and consumption of root beer. Jointly pursuing his pre-med classes and a degree in modern American history, he also took part in activities ranging from director of CHANCE (an academic assistance program operated in conjunction with the local public high school), to student tutor and prefect, to writer, editor, and president of a popular campus humor publication.
Despite nearly veering into a lifetime of dusty libraries, Robby chose to return home to begin medical school at the University of Minnesota. For two years, he wondered how exactly the biochemical properties of copper amine oxidase fit into his concept of patient-oriented medicine. Not finding any clear answers, he instead focused his energies on a variety of student groups (Family Medicine Interest Group, Medical Students for Choice, Medical Student Democrats, etc.) and on befriending the mice and flies who had happily taken up residence in the kitchen of his beloved Phi Chi Medical Fraternity.
Robby finished his second year of medical school looking for a change of pace. His developing interest in international medicine, combined with a desire to improve his Spanish, motivated him to organize an extended independent study program in Central America. In January 2005, he traveled to Costa Rica, and over the next six months he occupied himself with language school, coursework in tropical medicine and parasitology, and rotations in a variety of rural and urban medical environments. This experience greatly renewed his enthusiasm for medicine, and he returned to Minnesota excited about nearly every rotation he took. While Robby wanted to continue trying out everything under the sun, the prospect of certain financial ruin convinced him that he would have to give up being a student eventually and pick a specialty.
Luckily, that time coincided with his Primary Care Clerkship; by day three of his family medicine rotation, Robby knew he had found his home. He loved the patient contact, the continuity of care, the breadth and variety of the medicine, the adaptability and flexibility of the specialty; in short, it was what he had always thought being a doctor was actually about. He was equally excited, a year later, to choose the United Family Medicine Residency Program as his new home. The diverse patient population, unparalleled community focus, and excellent faculty were strong factors in his decision; also important was the fact that the residents were strongly supported in their interests.
Robby’s interests in medicine are mostly wide-ranging, though he has a soft spot for both international medicine and sports medicine. And, while he still considers himself a novice in questions of health policy, access, and infrastructure, he looks forward to learning more about these issues over the next three years. Outside of the hospital, you will probably find Robby traveling, biking, looking for Scrabble partners, discovering new music, exploring Oklahoma City, watching the Daily Show, and looking forward to spoiling his niece. His family, which is responsible for most everything he has ever accomplished, lives in the Twin Cities.
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Robby Bershow, MD |
Marla DeWitt, M.D. is a native Iowan who was born and spent her formative years in the lovely rolling hills around Council Bluffs, Iowa. College brought the opportunity to explore new horizons in diverse areas and hence, Marla seized the opportunity to explore the opposite corner of her state. At the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls she chose a major in Biology and made a valiant attempt to minor in the rest of the departments, ultimately managing minors in Ethics and Chemistry.
After two decades or so in Iowa, Marla knew it was time to get some experience living elsewhere. So she joined Peace Corps, got on a plane and ended up on an island in Lake Victoria in the Northwest corner of Tanzania. She spent two years there teaching secondary school, learning Swahili, and trying all the culinary variations possible with rice and beans. It was in Tanzania that an interest in community health and a love for cross cultural interactions began to emerge. She returned to the U.S. older, wiser, sunburned and with a deep desire to work overseas again.
Following her return to the U.S. in 2002, Marla spent a peaceful 6 months readjusting to life in the U.S., interviewing for medical school, planning a wedding, and moving to Minnesota. She attended medical school at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota and while rotating through the various departments, found that folks in the family medicine department seemed to smile more often.
As often as possible, Marla tries to get back to Council Bluffs to reconnect with her parents George and Sarah and her older sister, Shelly. Marla’s husband Nathan works for the University of Minnesota in Rochester and is finishing his PhD in Higher Education. They enjoy discussing who is actually the ‘real’ doctor in the family, a variety of outdoor pursuits, and adding to their family of pets (2 dogs, 2 cats and counting!).
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Marla Dewitt, MD |
Angela Fryer, M.D., was born and raised in the quaint little town of Red Wing, Minnesota. She was lucky to be raised by two sets of parents; her two moms were nurses and her dad was the hospital laboratory guru. Angela has early memories of her father walking the two short blocks home from the hospital in the winter with Petri dishes under his arms to keep them warm so he could swab the kid’s throats for strep. He was also the one who drew her blood at 3 a.m. in the Emergency Room when she had a fever of 105, much to her utter dismay and protesting. Having survived this unforgettable ordeal, she went on to spend many hours discovering the wonders of the pathology lab that were next door to her father’s office. Her family planted an early and indestructible seed of medicine which would flourish from that point on with a few detours along the way.
Being the youngest of 5 children, in very typical youngest child behavior Angela decided that she needed to go to college as far away from Minnesota as possible. There was a small all female liberal arts college in the state of Virginia (to which she had never been) that offered her an academic scholarship and wanted her to play basketball to boot. Randolph-Macon Woman’s College was her home for four wonderful years, at the end of which she was finally able to say y’all without grimacing. Having decided that she was not yet ready for medical school, she applied to the Peace Corps which would carry her ever further away from Minnesota.
She completed her undergraduate degree in chemistry, from which she still has a very sour taste for physical chemistry, and then made a leap and accepted an invitation with the Peace Corps to be a volunteer in Cameroon. She had an idyllic Peace Corps experience, living in a small village in the mountains of northwest Cameroon for three years where she taught secondary school chemistry and biology in addition to working in the prenatal clinic and labor and delivery ward. Angela was successful in bringing foreign aid to her village by procuring funding for two projects. The first was a project to provide ceilings for classrooms at the school where she taught and the second was a much larger project to upgrade the local heath center. She planned and supervised both the building of a new hospital wing and bringing running water into the health center. She is a also a strong advocate of women’s education and worked with the Cameroonian Women in Development, planning and supervised fundraising and disbursement of math and science scholarships for secondary school girls and small business loans to women for rural income generating projects. However, she would say the biggest perk of working for the Peace Corps was meeting her husband Diego, a fellow volunteer.
After returning from the Peace Corps and then working at the National Science Foundation for two years, Angela decided it was time to return home to Minnesota and start medical school. Angela spent her third year of medical school participating in the Rural Physician Associate Program (RPAP) in her hometown of Red Wing. It was there that she solidified her interest in Family Medicine. Medicine and obstetrics both appealed to her greatly and she felt that only in Family Medicine would she be able to pursue all of her interests.
Angela, who lives with her husband in St. Paul, is excited to be within walking distance of the community she will be serving. She hopes her practice will include a wide range of family medicine with a focus on maternal/child health and that someday she will be able to travel back to Cameroon or Uganda where her husband does his economics research and dedicate a portion of her career to international medicine.
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Angela Fryer, MD |
Megan Gladen, M.D.,though born in the Twin Cities area, was quickly whisked up north. She spent her first several years on the Canadian border in Baudette, Minnesota. She later moved “south” to Blackduck, Minnesota, which is where she graduated from high school. Megan grew up fishing and playing in and on Lake of the Woods, as well as watching the greatest sport on earth – hockey. In fact, it was some time before she understood that the title of our national anthem was not “The Hockey Song.” Megan’s interest in medicine began while she was quite young. She remembers being fascinated by her father’s EMT manuals and by science and the human body. For her ninth grade career paper, there was no question that she would write it on being a physician. The only question at that time was what type of physician. The paper’s final topics were neonatology and general surgery. Megan was delighted to have the opportunity to interview physicians in both those fields as well as shadow a general surgeon. These experiences served to increase her desire to one day become a physician herself.
When Megan graduated from high school, she made the move to the big city of Duluth where she attended the University of Minnesota Duluth and graduated with a major in cell biology. Her special interests were microbiology and antibiotic resistance, and Megan could often be found in the lab mixing agars or cultivating her “bugs.” During her undergraduate career, her interest in medicine continued to grow. However, she began to see the light and realize that family medicine was the natural specialty for her. She applied to the University of Minnesota Medical School in Duluth because of their focus on rural primary care and was ecstatic to be accepted by her chosen school. She thoroughly enjoyed her years in beautiful Duluth but reluctantly moved to the Twin Cities to complete her training. Over the past few years, however, she has learned to appreciate the many beauties around her present home but is still looking forward to practicing in a rural area of the country, or even internationally for a time. Megan is interested in the full spectrum of family medicine, including obstetrics, geriatrics, and community education.
Megan married her wonderful husband, Derek, in 2000, and they welcomed their daughter, Allison, into the family in 2006. She enjoys spending time with her husband and very active little girl. In her scant free time, she is an avid reader as well as a Scrubs and M*A*S*H devotee. Horses have also always been a special love of hers. Megan took a year off between college and medical school that was, in part, devoted to learning the exhilarating art of dressage. She dreams of the day when she will once again be able to ride regularly. Spending time with her family is a priority to Megan, as well as taking time to periodically visit her beloved northern Minnesota.
Megan is looking forward to joining the United Family Medicine Residency Program. She was drawn to the program’s focus on community and sees the West Seventh neighborhood as a small town within the city, with many of the characteristics of a rural community. The residency also has a reputation for excellence, and Megan is excited to train surrounded by exceptional family physicians who truly have a heart for the people and community they serve.
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Megan Gladen, MD |
Kinsey Nelson, M.D., was born and raised in the urban oasis on the prairie of Fargo, North Dakota as the younger of 2 children. Whether accurate or not, he likes to describe himself as having a normal childhood. Thanks to his mother’s work as a pharmacist and his father’s work in refugee resettlement, he grew up assuming all kids hung out in pharmacies for a few hours on Saturdays and would make the occasional trip to the airport at 11 pm on a Tuesday to greet newly arriving refugees. It wasn’t until later in life that he grew to appreciate the more unique aspects of his upbringing. With his early exposure to the medical field, it didn’t take long before Kinsey developed an interest in medicine. But he attributes his ultimate decision to pursue a medical career to the interaction between both of his parents’ lines of work, as many of the refugees he had met through his father’s work received their medical care at his mother’s clinic.
While growing up, Kinsey spent much of his time participating in athletics, his sports of choice being baseball, basketball and track. He also spent a great deal of time on music, as he started playing the cello at the age of 10. He could easily be spotted in junior high as the kid hauling his cello with him to basketball practice or onto the bus after school, something he didn’t particularly appreciate as a 13 year-old. In spite of such traumatizing events, he persevered and continued to be active in both music and athletics through high school.
Wherever life may take him, Kinsey will always be a proud Fargoan at heart. In spite of his fondness for the city of his youth, he decided to venture eastward for college, making it all the way to St. Peter, MN to attend Gustavus Adolphus College. Here he earned a degree in biology while becoming increasingly involved in music. After college it was time for another big move—a whole 70 miles northeast to attend medical school at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He continued to be involved in music, playing in a university orchestra during the first two years of medical school. While Kinsey enjoyed many different rotations during his clinical years, he never felt more at home than when he was doing family medicine. The relationships with patients, breadth of material, focus on prevention and dedication to the underserved all made family medicine the perfect fit for Kinsey. He hopes to eventually have a practice covering the full range of family medicine with a focus on working with the medically underserved.
Kinsey enjoys spending his free time in any number of ways. He continues to play his cello (even if he might not sound as good as he used to). When not hampered by injuries, he could be described as an avid runner—he enjoys running half-marathons (but enjoys finishing them more) and one of these years will get up the motivation to run a full one. He also enjoys reading various types of books, though he definitely has his favorites (huge Harry Potter nerd!). And if all else fails, he’s always happy to just sit back and watch some Seinfeld reruns or a few episodes of Scrubs or challenge his brother-in-law to a game of hockey on Xbox (it usually doesn’t end well for Kinsey). He enjoys spending time with his family as well as the special lady in his life—a mischievous orange kitty named Mabel who is too smart for her own good.
Kinsey is excited to join the United Family Medicine Residency Program. He looks forward to being part of a program with faculty and residents that are dedicated to the highest level of teaching while being integral partners within the community.
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Kinsey Nelson, MD |
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