Pronouns: She / Her
Oregon Health and Science University
Madeline is a lifelong fan of the mountains, having grown up in the Pacific Northwest after graduating high school in Portland, Madeline moved to a remote rural community in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas where she lived during her undergraduate studies. She developed a taste for travel during college, studying abroad in Bogotá, Colombia and also traveling extensively in the Middle East. It was upon seeing a hospital in the Gaza Strip, where doctors cared for patients despite blackouts and insecurity, that she committed to herself to becoming a doctor. Following college, Madeline joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in a small village in Kenya teaching science while being immersed in a beautiful place and culture. She attended Oregon Health & Science University for medical school, where she fell in love with family medicine. While it was wonderful to be back in Portland, she found herself eager to return to a smaller community, and she developed a love of rural family medicine when she spent three months working with family doctors in Oregon's Wallowa Mountains. She jumped at the chance to spend her final year of medical school in Klamath Falls through the Oregon FIRST program, and she feels extremely lucky to stay here for residency training.
Pronouns: She / Her
Wright State University
Kara loved her childhood growing up on a farm in central Ohio, playing and working outside every day. Her active lifestyle led to quite a few mishaps; she had her fair share of bumps, bruises, and broken bones. Because of her exposure to the healthcare system, she realized at a young age that she wanted to be a doctor. The farm offered many opportunities to solidify that desire. When her favorite goat was kicked by a horse and broke a leg, she helped “cast” the leg with PVC pipe and duct tape. When another goat labored in vain for 3 days, she helped her dad with a C-section, holding intestines out of the way as he cut through tissue. She was absolutely convinced that she was going to be a surgeon because she liked procedural work. It wasn’t until college that she realized that she did not like being in the operating room. About that same time, she took a class that exposed her to a life completely different from her idyllic childhood – a life characterized by economic and social oppression, a life on the margins of society. Through the class, God gave her a vision and passion for serving underserved communities. These communities need a primary care physician, one who could keep them out of the hospital and make small changes in the present to avoid the surgeon’s blade in the future.
During medical school, she met Max on a blind date. They fell in love and got married on her family’s farm. It was Max who first suggested that Kara look out west for residency programs. Although at first hesitant to move so far from home and family, she discovered that the western programs provided her exactly the kind of training she was looking for. She is excited to explore the outdoors and learn to be a competent and caring family physician here in Klamath Falls.
University of Minnesota School of Medicine
Sarah grew up in a small town in Central Minnesota. She was always interested in science and medicine, and attended Saint Cloud State University for a major in Biomedical Science and minor in Statistics. It was here that she met her husband, Phil. During her schooling, she studied abroad in the Harry Potter castle in Alnwick, England, which helped her discover a new interest in travel. After undergrad, she took a year and a half to work as a pharmacy technician prior to medical school at the University of Minnesota. Living in the Twin Cities helped her see that she is a small-town girl at heart. Participating in the Rural Physician Associate Program (RPAP) sparked her interest in Family Medicine with OB. Other interests include pediatrics and addiction medicine. She began looking for rural family medicine programs with a strong emphasis on OB, which brought her away from her Midwest roots to Klamath Falls. She looks forward to hiking, kayaking, and exploring the outdoor wonders the area has to offer with her husband. She also enjoys playing board games, exploring new wineries and craft breweries, cooking, and spending time with her cat, Tidus.
Oregon Health and Science University
Lily was born in Eugene, Oregon. She attended the University of Oregon where she majored in biology and minored in human physiology and chemistry. She worked as a waitress and manager throughout college. After college she worked as a medical assistant. It was on a medical mission trip to Guatemala, that she decided she wanted to work in an underserved area. In medical school she traveled with her rural health college to Klamath Falls. She fell in love with the scenery and the people and feels honored to get to practice here. In her limited free time Lily enjoys gardening, cooking and making pottery.
University of South Dakota - Sanford School of Medicine
It was a Monday that Eric was born into a family of travelers. Within these journeys he discovered which region of the United States makes the true barbecue sauce. He simultaneously discovered a love of music and a dislike of music lessons. An exploration of string, wind, and percussion instruments found the perfect combination of noise that would drown out his eventual tinnitus. He learned to drive at 13.5 years of age (the norm in South Dakota) and it’s been a frightful affair ever since.
Leaving South Dakota’s adolescence behind, he took a metaphorical riverboat to New Orleans. There, at Tulane University, he practiced the incredibly valuable technique of making Escherichia coli organisms fluoresce when excited. They were not amused. He single-footedly repelled an advancing army of 650,500 cockroaches; he was bested by squadrons of mosquitos.
Eric continued his craft of making musical noise, now in the nightclubs and coffee shops of New Orleans. He recorded bands in warehouses, spending countless hours twiddling knobs to elicit dulcet reverberating vibrations. His attempts to elicit a sustainable income from these vibrations were less than successful. The traveling family found Florida, and Eric saw opportunity in service and personal growth. He assisted his grandfather with ailing health and practiced clinical embryology and andrology at a fertility clinic.
Eric witnessed an archetype of compassionate, humanistic medical care during a home hospice visit by a family physician. Further discussions with this mentor sparked Eric’s interests in pursuing a medical career in family medicine with focus on birth-to-death care and public health advocacy. He met his best friend in medical school, is proud to walk as her husband until his last heartbeat. In between meals he enjoys reading, making music, outdoor activities, and yearly trips around the sun.
University of South Dakota - Sanford School of Medicine
Kat spent her early years in the mountains of Colorado and South Dakota, taking her first steps in a campground. She metamorphosed from Band Geek to Normal Adult before moving to eastern SD for college. She took pleasure in working as a photographer and a direct support for developmentally disabled adults throughout college. Her love of people combined with an insatiable curiosity eventually brought her to South Dakota’s medical school. Kat has a special interest in integrative medicine; she’s always eager to investigate how our natural world can impact our health.
Kat met her husband (and co-resident) Eric in medical school. They enjoy hiking, camping, and fishing whenever they can. Kat loves to knit and sew, especially projects for her baby nephew Elliott. She has two cats who also love these hobbies (or at least what they can sneak off with from the yarn pile!). Fortunately, the Book Worm of childhood never left her, and she continues to be an avid reader today.
Pronouns: She / Her
University of Arizona College of Medicine
Coya grew up on the Colorado front range, surrounded by nature. Coupling her dedication to creating a healthier world with a passion for learning led her to Medicine. Formerly, she was a coffee barista in New Zealand, a snowsport bum at Steamboat, a cadaver lab instructor in Denver, and a long-distance cyclist/ wilderness backpacker/avid traveler.
After graduating as the Outstanding Undergraduate at the University of Colorado Denver, she celebrated by hiking the Colorado Trail with her husband Paul (an Oregonian). They headed to stunning Tucson for Coya’s medical school education. There she was able to delve deeper into her personal interests of Integrative and lifestyle medicine, rural medicine, and outreach to vulnerable groups. On that end, she spent 4 years in an Integrative training tract, 26 weeks of medicine at isolated sites in Arizona or tribal lands, and hundreds of hours involved in food-as-medicine or underserved clinics on both sides of the border.
Coya is thrilled to be a part of the strong, proud, and friendly Cascades East Family Med team. She is elated her two young kids will be raised here in K Falls surrounded by nature.
Oregon Health and Science University
Margo was raised on a farm outside of Albany, Oregon where she helped raise four siblings, sparking her strong desire to care for others. She moved a few miles away from home to complete her undergraduate studies in Biochemistry and Biophysics at Oregon State University where she also worked in a research laboratory completing biochemistry and renewable energy projects. Her passion for human connection ultimately led her away from the lab and into the world of medicine. She worked for several years as a scribe in the emergency department and ultimately attended medical school at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon. Throughout her time at OHSU, she maintained her love of the rural life she was raised in and was one of OHSU’s first Scholars for a Healthy Oregon - committing to a minimum of five years practicing medicine in a rural area following her residency training. She fell in love with the continuity, relationships, and full-scope of Family Medicine and knew that the Cascades East residency program would provide her with the best of these elements and more. In her free time, Margo enjoys hiking, camping, reading, gardening, and spending time with her black lab Addie.