The mission of Birchwood Family Medicine is to make careful, kind, evidence based whole-person primary medical care both accessible & affordable for those in Northwest Wisconsin. Born from my childhood dream, we opened mid-pandemic 2021 and now serve ~ 500 members in our Direct Primary Care community to whom we are deeply committed. All are welcome here.
As we face change in our Nation this winter, I would like to re-introduce myself to you. My name is Kristen – our members call me Doc, Dr. K, Dr. Kristen, Doctor, Dr. DW, or Dr. Dall-Winther. You can read, listen-to or watch my biography & credentials on our website, but I’d like to share what I think matters most – more than my board certifications, JAMA publications, titles & degrees.
I grew up as the oldest of 4 whose parents instilled in us a deep sense of service & empathy. When hardship and trauma came for us, they taught us how to be resilient & tenacious and showed us the power optimism, faith & community can have in advancing the greater good. We grew up in the ELCA church & were each challenged to become “contributing members of society.” Those are the values are at the heart of BWFM’s inception.
Our members know that Birchwood Family Medicine is both a politics – and judgement – free zone as it is my professional opinion that neither politics nor judgement has any place in the practice of medicine. Never has. However, in the last 12 days, we’ve been inundated with questions & concerns from members about vaccinations, the CDC, the FDA, contraception, and what public health will look like as the Administration transfers power.
Although we don’t have answers to any of those questions, I do know that nothing about the practice of medicine at BWFM is changing. Birchwood Family Medicine will remain committed to our members and we will continue to operate according to our mission, vision & core values.
The practice of medicine is an evidence-backed, healing art which requires decades of study & experience to excel at. I will continue to practice guided by the Oath I swore more than 20 years ago and maintain that your health-care decisions ought to be yours alone, save only for those whose wise counsel you seek for guidance in furtherance of your life’s health goals – never involving your insurer, nor employer nor government. For those who seek my counsel, it will remain my honor to continue to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not”, nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.