Sammer Dia, MD
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
Sammer grew up all over the midwest and southeast. He attended West Point and served in an Airborne Engineer battalion in Alaska, occasionally jumping out of airplanes and skiing. After landing back in the midwest despite a lifetime of efforts to escape, he was ready for a change. He went back to the interior of Alaska to participate in a farming apprenticeship at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center while volunteering as a firefighter and EMT. Working as an EMT inspired him pursue medicine, and he worked summers as a wildland fire medic on wildfires to pay for pre-medical classes. In medical school he completed a rural training program in northern Maine, just across the river from Canada. Working side by side with rural family medicine doctors showed him that rural family medicine was the only field of medicine where he could pursue his interests in lifestyle medicine, emergency and prehospital care, pediatrics, and obstetrics. He is excited to explore Klamath Falls with his partner and fellow resident, Ryan Morris, and their three dogs.
Diego Giraldo, MD
Pronouns: He/Him/His
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Diego grew up in Urbana, Maryland, a small town only a stone’s throw away from the nation's capital. It was where his parents decided to plant roots after immigrating from Colombia. Although he was always interested in the sciences, his introduction to medicine came in the form of a high school field trip to observe open heart surgery.
He went on to attend the University of Maryland to earn his bachelor’s degree in Physiology and Neurobiology. His interest in serving rural communities was sparked after spending two summers as a commercial fisherman near Kasilof, Alaska. The opportunity to foster community and develop lifelong relationships as a family physician was simply too good to pass up.
Diego is thrilled to be a part of CEFM. His interests in family medicine includes hospitalist, emergency, and wilderness medicine. In his spare time, Diego enjoys backpacking, running, and nature photography.
Matt Guarino, MD
Pronouns: He/Him/His
University of Massachusetts T.H. Chan School of Medicine
Matt is from Walpole, MA, a town about an hour outside of Boston. He grew up working in his family’s restaurant and playing every sport he could try. In high school, he had the opportunity to spend his summers studying in Spain, living with host families and taking language and culture classes at the local universities. He eventually went off to UCLA for undergrad, where he studied biochemistry, minored in Spanish, and worked as an EMT. He also met his partner, Sonya, and found his passion for trail running during that time.
Matt attended UMass for medical school, where his love for the outdoors grew and he became more active in the trail running community. His work as a running coach made him realize the value of exercise as medicine and of being a committed partner to patients in their health journeys, which helped spur his interest in Family Medicine. After exploring the mountains of New England and spending some time in rural family practices, he and Sonya realized they wanted to live and practice in a rural area and were immediately impressed by what Cascades East and Klamath Falls had to offer.
When he’s not on the trails or working, he’s spending time at home with Sonya, their 2 dogs, Baxter and Chili, and their 5 chickens; he also likes to cook and read in his free time. He hopes to practice rural family medicine, and has special interests in sports and exercise medicine, wilderness medicine, men’s and women’s health, and emergency medicine.
Nuri Hegelmeyerm, MD, PhD
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
Nuri was born in Los Angeles and grew up in her hometown of Glendale, CA. She attended UC Berkeley for college, where she majored in English and molecular biology and especially enjoyed courses in developmental biology and novels by Nabokov and Dostoevsky. After college, she spent several gap years researching stroke and brain trauma at UCSF, reading and teaching the philosophy and history of science, and volunteering with an outpatient hospice service. Medicine seemed like a good way to satisfy her diverse interests in the humanities and the life sciences, and so she applied for medical school. After nine years in the Bay Area, she joined the MD/PhD program at Stony Brook University on Long Island in New York, where she completed a PhD in genetics with Dr. Jessica Seeliger.
Nuri chose family medicine because she believes medicine is most effective longitudinally, and she looks forward to seeing patients in all seasons, from birth to end of life, in and out of the hospital, and especially in low-access settings. While in medical school, she visited Cascades East on a month-long away rotation, where she saw firsthand both the beauty of Klamath Falls and the sincere camaraderie, rigorous medical training, and whole-hearted patient care that sets CEFM apart. She and her husband Chad feel so lucky to be joining this special community.
In her spare time, Nuri enjoys books, music, cooking and eating, games (card, board, video), hikes with a view, and paddling around on one of Oregon’s many beautiful lakes.
Ryan Morris, MD
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
Ryan grew up in a town called Guilford on the shoreline in Connecticut. She remained in Connecticut for college and got her bachelor’s degree in psychology from UConn. For the four years in-between college and medical school, she completed a postbac degree and worked in ophthalmology, living in New York City and Boston. In medical school at Quinnipiac, she knew the city life was behind her and spent her entire third year in a town of 4000 people in Northern Maine learning about rural medicine. While there, she fell in love with the small-town life as well as full-spectrum, rural family medicine and the continuous care it allows physicians to provide to patients. She chose to come to Cascades East with her partner, Sammer (also a resident) because of its incredible broad-spectrum training and the great community inside and outside of the program. In her free time, Ryan loves hiking or running with her dogs and riding horses.
Caitlin Quaempts, MD
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
University of Washington School of Medicine
Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Caitlin Quaempts had easy access to the outdoors that allowed for her to fall in love with skiing, backpacking and fly fishing. As a direct descendant of the Yakama Nation, being in central Washington allowed her to practice a variety of different cultural traditions, mostly through gathering of different types of foods. While she participated in a variety of different sports throughout high school, she ultimately decided to play collegiate soccer at Florida Southern College. Here she majored in biology, spanish and got a chemistry minor. While it was a good experience to see a new part of the country, she knew she wanted to return to the Pacific Northwest where mountains exist. She decided to go to medical school at University of Washington, with the intention of becoming a family practice provider for the Yakama Nation to help keep alive the traditions she grew up practicing. During medical school, she participated in the Targeted Rural Underserved Track which allowed her to appreciate what full spectrum family medicine truly means, which further strengthened her desire to practice rural medicine. The Cascades East Family Medicine Residency Program seemed like the perfect fit, and she is so excited to get to know the community!
Ryan Ricci, MD
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine UNLV
Dr. Ricci completed his undergraduate and medical school degrees in Las Vegas where he grew up. He enjoys scuba diving, hiking, playing guitar and piano, cycling, and running. At home, he likes relaxing with a book next to his wife and three cats. With a particular interest in wilderness medicine, he aims to take full advantage of his training in Klamath Falls to effectively practice full scope rural family medicine in remote and low-resource environments.
Zbigniew Sikora, MD
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Oregon Health & Science University
Zbigniew was born in Gdynia, Poland. He moved to the United States when he was seven, first living in Michigan and moving to the Willamette Valley prior to starting high school. He decided on pursuing medicine prior to graduation.
Zbigniew attended THD Oregon State University for his undergrad where he studied microbiology, following in the footsteps of his parents. He then attended Oregon Health & Science University, where he developed a passion for full-spectrum Family Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine.
During his spare time, Zbigniew enjoys running, working out, and generally spending time outside. He also enjoys learning to cook different cuisines, reading science fiction novels, and fixing the seemingly endless stream of broken things in his house.
Reese Willingham, MD
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine
Reese is from Hendersonville, NC, a town located right outside of Asheville. Given the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains, she found exploring the wilderness around her and falling in love with nature. She had the opportunity to attend an Early College Program for high school, and through that, she was able to do an internship with a local Federally Qualified Health Center, and the oldest migrant clinic in the United States. She realized the true difference that medical care can make in the lives of those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to receive or afford healthcare, and she made it her life mission to pursue medicine.
After graduating from high school with a 2-year associate’s degree, Reese attended the University of North Carolina – Asheville. During that time, she began to mentor and tutor teenagers from her former high school and assist them in their coursework and their aspirations towards working in the medical field. In her senior year, she found herself working with the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) in Asheville, which acted as a hub for both providing patient care to the underserved, and training future healthcare providers. She found herself enthusiastic about the “pipeline” programs at MAHEC. These programs allowed high school students to receive exposure to healthcare professions and they worked with undergraduate students to assist them with crafting applications to professional schools, both through mentoring and direct clinical experiences. Reese’s passion for mentoring, guiding, and spreading enthusiasm about medicine flourished in this environment.
During medical school, Reese became a Kenan Rural Scholar, which allowed her to focus on her desire to serve a rural community. She received special instruction about the skills needed to become a rural primary care doctor, and the challenges that came with that role. She was fortunate to do her clinical rotations back at MAHEC and continue the projects and activities that she had started while in undergrad.
Reese chose rural family medicine, and then Klamath Falls chose her. She fell in love with the easy access to the outdoors, the abundant opportunities to practice full-scope family medicine, and the idea of moving across the country to start a whole new journey in her medical career.
In her free time, she loves to hang out with her two dogs, Ru and Juniper, and explore the natural world around her. If you can get dirty doing it, she is all in. Her interests range from biking, hiking, backpacking, caving, paddling, and anything that doesn’t involve running.