Class of 2025

aspiring astronaut. Approaching six feet of height as a teenager, she soon realized that space missions would be off the table but remained fascinated by science. Raised by an obstetrician and physical therapist, she was also enthralled by the human body (and often encountered words like “parenchyma” at the dinner table). Her formative years in northwestern WI certainly left their mark – in the form of a lifelong love affair with cheese.

After graduating from high school, Anna moved to Moorhead, Minnesota to attend Concordia College. She majored in French while pursuing a pre-med track and ended up getting to spend a year abroad in Tromso, Norway. Her time above the Arctic Circle solidified her love of winter and various snow-sports, while also giving her the chance to pick up some Norwegian along the way. After finishing college, Anna stayed in Fargo-Moorhead to work at a local women’s clinic and scribe in an emergency room, in order to decide once and for all if medicine was where she belonged. The answer was a resounding yes – inspired by the passion and activism of her colleagues in reproductive care, and moved by her experiences as a hospice volunteer, Anna knew that this was the kind of work she wanted to do.

Medical school brought Anna to Minneapolis, to attend the University of Minnesota. Amidst the chaos of first year classes, she was able to find time to explore her new community, and quickly fell in love with the parks, breweries, restaurants, and public libraries of the Twin Cities. She got involved with local reproductive health advocacy and found community & solidarity in the interprofessional group PRIDE in Healthcare. Throughout her clinical experiences, she discovered new passions in palliative care, addiction medicine, gender-affirming care and narrative medicine.

In her free time, Anna loves to read (especially speculative fiction), write, visit local bakeries, spend time with her young nephews, and explore nature with her partner and their dog, Flora. She is thrilled to be joining the United Family Medicine Residency community!

siblings spent early days finding bugs to examine in the Little Tykes microscope, flying kites barefoot in the front yard, making nature bracelets on family camping trips, and caring for a variety of pets. This time together later turned into rebounding each other’s basketball shots, playing catch, and cheering each other on at various sporting events and dance and music recitals.

Following graduation from Sioux Falls Christian High School, Laura attended Northwestern College (NWC) in Orange City, IA. Inspired by interests cultivated by her upbringing, she pursued studies in biology, mathematics, and Spanish. Here, she further fostered her sense of curiosity, developed problem-solving skills, and enjoyed learning the nuances of a new language in the context of diverse cultures and peoples. Outside of the classroom, she spent time on the ball diamond as a four-year starter for the NWC Softball Team. Though she had spent her childhood believing she would be either a veterinarian or the next Jane Goodall, Laura was not yet sure what career path she would pursue. Yet, it was a shadowing experience with a family physician that first sparked Laura’s interest, as she was drawn to the relationship-based care afforded through continuity over generations of families. Early experiences in public health, including participation in community-led activities to identify local health needs in Nicaragua and summer work as South Dakota Department of Public Health, fueled her passion for a future at the intersection of primary care and public health.

Following graduation from college, Laura traded Iowa cornfields for Chicago skyscrapers to attend Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois. Her experience there as a member of the Rush Family Medicine Leadership Program allowed her to gain a small taste of the wonderful relationships central to family medicine through longitudinal participation in continuity clinic with a family physician mentor. Her participation in several leadership roles through the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, such as assisting in the coordination of Mental Health First Aid training for community members and medical students, developing and facilitating workshops featuring the incredible work of state leaders in health equity, and participating in the AAFP Family Medicine Advocacy Summit, shaped her vision for family physicians as leaders and advocates. Laura also spent time volunteering in health education and promotion programs for middle school students as well as expecting and parenting high school students, which continued to solidify her aim for community engagement and partnership as a future family physician. Following third year of medical school, Laura took a brief hiatus from Rush Medical College to complete her Master of Public Health at Northwestern University. Her thesis allowed her to combine her clinical interests in behavioral and women’s health, investigating adverse childhood experiences and health outcomes among reproductive women.

Collectively, these experiences guided her passion to provide compassionate, full spectrum care with cultural humility for diverse populations with community engagement, advocacy, and leadership. Laura is thrilled to join United Family Medicine Residency, working alongside likeminded and passion individuals. In her free time, Laura can be found searching for the best coffee and pastries in the Twin Cities, exploring the outdoors by hikes, bikes and camping, trying out new recipes, and catching up with family and friends.

that she spent most of her time, academically, living in the shadows of her brainiac mathematician older brother. Bobbi tried to emulate his math skills, until she reached AP calculus, after which she completely abandoned math and has not taken another math course since. Instead, she found herself immersed in the school’s athletics, joining the Owatonna Athletic Training Student Assistant team after a volleyball injury. She spent countless hours on the sidelines learning from the school’s athletic trainer and team physicians. Through this program, she found a passion for serving the community and helping her peers. The team physicians were local family medicine physicians who took her under their wings and encouraged her to find a career in medicine.

Hesitant about her own abilities and the time it takes to become a physician, Bobbi entered the nursing program at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN for undergrad. There, her community of supporters and mentors grew. At that point she felt that she had what it would take to pursue her true dream of becoming a physician and changed her major to biology with a minor in chemistry with a plan of applying to medical school. Bobbi believes in paying it forward, tailoring her extracurriculars to help others navigate pre-med life with her roles as a pre-med mentor, science tutor, and biology teaching assistant. She even found time to make it back to Owatonna and volunteer with the athletic training team at community events.

When applying to medical schools, Bobbi knew that she wanted to stay local for her education and was ecstatic to be accepted to the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth Campus whose mission was to train rural primary care physicians. She fell in love with the north shore and would spend most of her free time hiking state parks and basking in the sun on Park Point. While a Minnesota native, Bobbi’s experience in Duluth made her realize that she is, in fact, not a winter person. After surviving the polar vortex of 2019 and a snow storm in May, Bobbi found every opportunity possible to return to Southern Minnesota. She stayed in her parents’ hometown of Blue Earth, MN when participating in the Rural Medical Scholar Program and even found herself in Owatonna for a Summer Internship in Medicine working with those same physicians from the athletic training team in clinic.

After Bobbi completed her classroom education in medical school in Duluth, she moved down to the Twin Cities to complete her clinical education of medical school. During this time she married her high school sweetheart and the two of them rescued a miniature pinscher-dachshund mix they named Hazel. Bobbi continued volunteer as a mentor and also found herself volunteering on committees to review medical education, improving the academic objectives in the medical school’s curriculum.

Bobbi is not new to United Family Physicians or the West 7th Community, as she spent 12 weeks with the clinic through the Urban Community Ambulatory Medicine clerkship. She fell in love with the sense of community inside and outside of the clinic, and is now excited to get the opportunity to serve the community throughout her training at United Family Medicine Residency Program. Bobbi is excited to grow her skills as a family medicine physician and pursue her many interests within family medicine including OB, sports medicine, and addiction medicine. Outside of medicine, Bobbi enjoys hiking with her husband and Hazel. If not on the trails, you can find her at a dog-friendly patio (seriously, she tries to bring her dog everywhere) enjoying sunshine, food, and drinks. During the winter months, you can find her in the kitchen trialing new recipes or under mounds of blankets watching reality competition shows.

career, Steve transitioned to endeavors that better fit his lack of athletic ability—mostly board games and hanging out at his cabin with friends. His interest in basketball has been maintained through woefully depressing fandom of the Minnesota Timberwolves, and a much more fruitful fandom of the Minnesota Lynx. He is a product of St. Paul Public Schools, where he gained lifelong friends from Capital Hill and Central.

Steve attended Oberlin College for his undergraduate education. There he majored in English Literature---writing an honors thesis on Don Delillo’s White Noise and teaching a course on the work of Roberto Bolaño. Steve began volunteering in the healthcare field during his undergrad time as well—working on primary prevention efforts against sexual and domestic violence as well as sexual health counseling.

After graduating from Oberlin, Steve returned home to the greatest state where he began work as a preschool teacher—a job that provided a combination of the most intense love and exasperation he was to experience until he became a father. He spent his free time volunteering with Alexandra House—working with adolescents on issues around sexual health—as well as continuing to pursue the fruits of the Minnesotan wilds and board game nights with his friends.

Spurred by a desire to have distance make the heart grow fonder, Steve left Minnesota and moved to Brooklyn in 2016, where he was able to reunite with his best friend from Oberlin. Steve loved living in New York, especially the great walkability and public transit. He continued his work in the social service sector at a nonprofit called Brooklyn Community Services. After helping a friend with a sprained ankle one wintery evening, Steve was recommended to consider a career in medicine, an idea he let percolate for about a year, before eventually concurring. Thus, after a brief but wonderful 1.5 years, Steve departed Brooklyn to attend the University of Virginia’s post-baccalaureate program.

Steve’s time in Charlottesville at UVA was a fun whirlwind. After studying the hard sciences for the first time since high school he found he still had a knack for it. He made life-long friends in the intense post-baccalaureate environment and thoroughly enjoyed with nature and culture of Charlottesville.

In the brief months before med school Steve discovered his new favorite place, the Baltics (especially Riga). During med school Steve loved exploring Pittsburgh and all that its myriad neighborhoods have to offer, but most importantly he met his wife, Laura! They began dating a week into school, got engaged during their third year, and had a baby and wedding their fourth year! Their baby, Cora, is amazing and the joy of their lives.

Now, Steve is very excited to be back in Minnesota and to introduce it to Laura and Cora. They bought a house half a block away from Steve’s childhood home, and a ten-minute walk from his brother and nephew. He is excited to be home and cheering a much-improved Timberwolves team and looking forward to finding a good place to play Magic: the Gathering and to play “DND” with friends.

that the frozen Canadian winter was more appealing. Several ice storms later, the golden fields of Maize, Kansas became her new home.

After graduating from Maize High School, Fernanda attended Yale University in New Haven where, contrary to what mid-2010 teen movies would have you believe, she did absolutely no acapella singing. She also spent time preparing to prepare to learn how to treat patients as a pre-medical student. Here, Fernanda also experienced meaningful relationships volunteering and performing blood pressure screenings at a local soup kitchen. Thus, began her path towards primary care.

Fernanda came back to Kansas to the Kansas University Medical Center where she spent time preparing to learn how to treat patients as a medical student. While there, she had confirmation that primary care would provide her with the opportunity to deepen relationships with patients and help them achieve better health. Fernanda also expanded her volunteering efforts with SNMA by coordinating various outreach events.

Fernanda is very excited about the prospect of treating patients with the United Family Medicine Residency Program. She believes that the focus on community medicine will mesh well with her own professional goals. While Fernanda’s many personalities, interests, and hobbies defy the boundaries of a mere biography some of her myriad passions include playing board games, eating good food, and looking at videos of baby sloths in buckets.

to the not-so-coastal Minnesota. She grew up at the intersection of traditional Vietnamese values at home, which included a strong emphasis on education and the belief that anything less than an A in school might as well be an F, and American culture, which emphasized that an A in every class meant you are overachieving and need to enjoy life a little more.

After graduating from Prior Lake High School, Cindy attended the University of Minnesota, College of Science and Engineering, where she initially pursued a degree in Chemical Engineering but then switched to plain old Chemistry major after her brief interaction with the course called “Introduction to Materials Science,” which she quickly realized had too toxic of a dose of physics for her taste.

During her undergraduate career, she was initially completing pre-requisites for pharmacy school, as she was fascinated by how a single pill can have the power to cure diseases. Medical school didn’t really enter her mind until her junior year, when her then-boyfriend (now spouse) complained about how often she complained about staring at the computer and counting pills behind the pharmacy counter. He suggested she should pursue medicine if she is more interested in taking care of people suffering from illness rather than dealing out the pills that treat the illness. After he planted this outlandish idea inside her head, she began to reflect on a large portion of her childhood spent helping her non-English speaking parents navigate the American healthcare system. The hours spent on the phone dealing with insurance companies and using her most mature voice as a 12-year-old pretending to be her mom or dad, arguing for a reduction in their medical bills (good thing most of these insurance agents had no idea whether a Vietnamese name is a feminine or masculine name and their acceptance that some people have a child-like voice through adulthood!) She realized that she did have a strong interest in medicine, the healthcare system, public health, and had always wanted to make healthcare access better for immigrant families like hers. Thus began her pivoting journey towards medical school.

After graduating college, Cindy took 2 years to dabble in some hard-core benchtop research at the Lillehei Heart Institute, work as a medical scribe, volunteer in hospice care, and take the annoyingly challenging MCAT (TWICE).  She educated herself on social determinants of health and systemic racism, prepared her application for medical school, and took the most serene road trip to Glacier National Park, Montana.

Cindy was eventually accepted to the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus. During her first two years of medical school, she had the privilege of spending week-long rotations at the Indian Health Service Hospital in Cass Lake, where she learned about health disparities affecting Native American communities and grew a stronger interest in health advocacy as a result. There, she confirmed a career as a Family Physician was exactly what she dreamed of. Also understanding there is a lack of representation of communities of color in higher education, she became involved in an afterschool tutoring and mentoring program for Native American students at Denfeld High School in Duluth. Once she transitioned to the Twin Cities, she became a mentor for undergraduate students interested in medicine through SNMA and Multicultural Empowering Seminars.

Cindy is beyond excited to spend the next three years training to become a Family Physician at United Family Medicine Residency Program, working with some of the most passionate Family Physicians who share similar interests in health advocacy and community engagement. In her free time, Cindy enjoys spending time with her children and spouse, cooking, baking, and going for a run on the treadmill. Once the kiddos are all tucked in at night, Cindy likes to wind down and relax with a big bowl of popcorn and a cup of tea while catching up on the most recent murder investigation episode on 20/20, Forensic Files, 48 Hours, or whatever crime investigation channel she can get her hands on.

in their grandmother’s garden, refinishing antique furniture with their father, and drawing pictures for their mother’s coworkers at the legal services office. They were always touched by the way the neighborhood came together to share resources after major hurricanes and remembers cleaning up palm fronds from the streets between power outages. Most of their best friends growing up were enrolled in the same nine-year-long dual-language program, where half the classes were taught in Spanish. Through this program, Lydia was able to meet people from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, giving them insight and compassion for immigrant communities and different cultures (and great food). Lydia decided in their teenage years to pursue medicine, although their grandmother predicted this when Lydia was 11, comparing their mother’s MRIs to their copy of Gray’s Anatomy. The realization of the failings of the US healthcare system when their mother became disabled ignited a lifelong drive to push for universal healthcare.

After graduating high school, Lydia followed their best friend to Florida State University, among the moss-covered trees and brick buildings of humid Tallahassee. Between biology classes, Lydia joined many of the university’s activist groups such as Dream Defenders, Students for a Democratic Society, Advocates for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and Students for Justice in Palestine. They volunteered at Hospice and fell in love with the deeply personal and family-centered care provided to people at such a pivotal time in their lives. During these years, Lydia was often found biking around Tallahassee, volunteering at the non-profit bike repair shop, studying during local punk shows, or working at the pizza joint down the street from the medical school they would soon matriculate into.

Medical school at Florida State University meant staying local with friends, family and the community organizers Lydia had met in undergraduate. This allowed Lydia to bring many of their passions to the medical school, such as events and lectures about single-payer healthcare systems, crisis pregnancy center awareness, care of transgender patients, and toxic stress in children experiencing family separation. Throughout Lydia’s clinical years in the capital city of Florida, they also stayed politically engaged at the state and local level, frequently speaking at committee hearings against bills limiting abortion access and against decreasing access to sex education in public school. Lydia completed their summer research fellowship at the Center for Child Stress & Health in Immokalee, Florida, with a focus on maternal mental health as a protective factor against toxic stress in children. Lydia’s research led to a revitalized passion for primary care – to take care of children means also taking care of their families, much like healthy communities beget healthy individuals!

Ultimately, Lydia was drawn to Allina United Health Family Physicians because of a shared vision of the importance of community in medicine. Having always been a terribly local person, Lydia plans to bring their passion and energy into Saint Paul as they did in Tallahassee, and hopefully help transform lives for the better. Lydia is ecstatic to integrate themselves into the strong West Seventh community and plans to spend free time exploring bike trails, book shops, community gardens, farmers markets, and cheering on the Minnesota Lynx.