Class of 2028

toward medicine as a future career. Maggie developed an interest in primary care while working at a summer camp for children with mental or physical disabilities, where she gained an appreciation for both the day-to-day of healthcare and the nuances of balancing multiple conditions. Throughout her college career, she went on to have experiences volunteering at a nursing home and gaining her EMT license and came to the realization that her true scope would be the broad scope of family medicine.

After graduating with a degree in music and biology from St. Olaf College, Maggie went on to medical school at Eastern Virginia Medical School, where she further grew her passion for family medicine and developed particular interests in rural medicine and mental healthcare.

Maggie is excited to be coming home and joining United Family Medicine for residency. During her free time, she enjoys hiking with her dog, making art, and playing board games with family and friends.

10 and still eagerly waits for the ice to clear each spring so she can get back behind the boat. As an adult, her favorite summer activities include camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In the winter, she loves downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, and knitting Norwegian mittens and sweaters.

She studied biology at St. Olaf College, served on Student Government as the President of the Volunteer Network, and enjoyed multiple intramural sports including broomball and sand volleyball. In the evenings, she worked as a nursing assistant at a nursing home. She enjoyed getting to know each of the residents and dreamed of becoming a doctor.

After graduating from college, she spent a year working as a medical assistant at a dermatology clinic. She assisted with multiple procedures including skin cancer screenings and biopsies. She has a keen eye for detail and is particularly interested in skin cancer detection and prevention and the treatment of common skin conditions such as acne, warts, eczema, and rashes.

She attended medical school at Des Moines University. In her spare time as a medical student, she was a Teaching Assistant for the clinical skills course at her school, and she taught basic first aid skills to local Girl Scouts.

modalities including knitting, crocheting, and sewing. She was the youngest attendant in her knitting club that she joined in middle school and she has always felt at home with the older generation.

She attended the University of Minnesota and got her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering. In school, she studied the brain and learned about the design process for neural stimulators - a technology that has helped her brother with his epilepsy! While engineering was an exciting field, Dani found her passion in medicine when she started working as a dialysis technician.

She then went on to attend the University of Minnesota Medical School where she started a non-profit (U Link) with some of her classmates while working towards her medical degree. Through U Link, she worked to help children from low-income families and first-generation college students like herself find their passions. She also completed her third-year rotations in Mora, MN where she grew her love for community-centered care.

Dani is so excited to be joining the team with United Family Medicine and to explore her interests including women’s health, palliative care, and addiction medicine.

he ultimately earned All-American honors on vault. After college he scribed in a community emergency department back in New York while his wife attended medical school. Drawing on his personal experiences in medicine and witnessing the need for community-based primary care, he returned to the North Star state to attend the University of Minnesota Medical School. Throughout medical school he continued to develop an appreciation for full-spectrum family medicine and became especially interested in sports medicine, preventive care, and community outreach. In his spare time Yaroslav continues to be involved in the gymnastics world and enjoys exploring the Twin Cities food scene.

nearly every day. He peaked early, winning state sports tournaments only during his elementary school years.

Once his peers caught up in height, he decided to hang up the baby cleats and prepare for a busy college schedule his high school chemistry teacher warned him about. He followed his siblings to the University of Minnesota, but instead of becoming a pencil pusher at the Carlson School of Business like his hardworking siblings, he went to the College of Biological Sciences to study something impactful like genetics.

Once his classmates caught up in height, Jake hung up his baby cleats and focused on preparing for the intense college schedule his high school chemistry teacher had warned him about. Following in his siblings’ footsteps, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota. But instead of becoming a three-day-weekend pencil pusher at the Carlson School of Management like his siblings, he chose to work hard and study genetics.

During undergrad, Jake’s grandmother progressed through the stages of Alzheimer’s disease, an experience that changed the course of his life. He began volunteering and working with older adults throughout the Twin Cities who were facing similar medical challenges. The fulfillment he found in this work affirmed that he was meant to serve this community long term. (It probably helped that, to many older Minnesotans, Jake looked just like their grandson.)

Upon matriculating to the University of Minnesota Medical school, Jake kept an open mind as to what he wanted to be when he grew up. But during clinical rotations—particularly at the VA hospital and during his family medicine rotation at United—he found himself most engaged and energized. He’s excited to return to United Family Medicine and continue the tradition of caring for the West 7th community.

In his free time, Jake enjoys board and video games, weightlifting, and playing basketball. He enjoys watching Kevin Love Timberwolves rebounding highlights and is on a quest to go pro in Catan. Thanks to his daughter, he’s the #1 customer at the M&M store in the Mall of America. His most expensive possession is his Siberian cat, Slippers AKA Slippy.

to his mother about cool facts he learned at school. Despite being a child to Latino immigrants, he enjoyed the winters in Minnesota by sledding, building snow forts, and warming up with a hot chocolate. Later in life, he became somewhat of a local celebrity in West St. Paul as people would go up to him to praise him for his performances in the local production of a play or musical at his high school. Although he denied ever being a true theatre kid, he enjoyed this brief stint in the performative arts.

His interest in medicine began in high school when he took his first biology course and fell in love with the coursework. It was the first course where he enjoyed doing work into the early hours of the day. His mother also worked at United Hospital which allowed him to think about a career in medicine. This then drove him to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus where he majored in Biology and French. During his time in undergrad, he worked as a volunteer in the emergency department at United Hospital and eventually became a medical scribe there. Working as a scribe, he got to interact with many of the United Family Medicine residents who he thought were the coolest and planted the seed for his future aspirations. 

He then packed his bags for Kansas City University where he ate way too much BBQ. Down south, he tutored elementary school students on human anatomy and volunteered at a needle exchange program during his breaks from his studies. He enjoyed listening to the stories of people who came in and validating their experiences with substance use, helping him to better understand harm reduction as a whole. He then went west to Denver, CO for his third year where he enjoyed every bit of his primary care rotations. He got excited learning about HIV medicine, reproductive health, nursing home care, and pediatrics. He also enjoyed the long term rapport and continuity of care that he witnessed during these patient visits. This confirmed that family medicine was the path for him and the rest was history.

He is excited to return to United as a resident at United Family Medicine. Interests include addiction medicine, reproductive health, and migrant health. Outside of medicine, he loves to partake in many elder activities such as reading classics, writing with his several fountain pens, baking, and building model ships (not in bottles yet). He also enjoys being outdoors, traveling, and finding the coziest coffee shops.

an only child, she mastered the fine art of keeping herself entertained—though her mom helped by signing her up for every sport imaginable. Basketball? Sure. Cheerleading? Why not. Swimming? Absolutely. And in true Minnesotan fashion, Natasha was on the ice by age 3—because in Minnesota, walking is optional, but skating is mandatory.

From an early age, Natasha’s schedule was a whirlwind of school, swim practice, then skating practice. Her competitive drive in both sports likely explains why she now approaches everything in life with the intensity of a figure skater—graceful, determined, and not afraid to fall hard and get back up.

High school marked a turning point when Natasha’s passion for figure skating took center stage (literally). She tried out for the Team USA synchronized skating team, which, unlike synchronized swimming, involved a lot more blades and fewer goggles. Representing the U.S. abroad and hearing the crowd chant for her country was life-changing—though she admits her suitcase was basically just skates, sequins, and schoolwork.

Natasha never lost sight of her dream to become a physician. She balanced her studies with elite sports and somehow still found time to be a personal care assistant, volunteer at hospitals, and support the Special Olympics and summer camps. By the time she got to Quinnipiac University for her degree in biomedical sciences, she had already written a masterclass in time management. Naturally, she added an MBA in healthcare management for fun—because apparently med school alone wasn’t ambitious enough.

Natasha eventually hung up her skates (gently, of course—they were expensive) and traded sequins for textbooks, choosing to study medicine on the beautiful Caribbean island of Grenada at St. George’s University. She admits studying on the beach wasn’t always productive, but the sunsets definitely helped take the edge off a brutal anatomy exam. And yes, she did go cliff jumping after finals—because adrenaline is apparently her preferred study supplement.

Grenada wasn’t just scenic; it was the setting for some of her proudest accomplishments. As President of IFMSA, Natasha organized the island’s first-ever community health fair and took part in rural vaccine outreach. She also learned to appreciate soca music, local culture, and the magic of a mango straight from the tree (her favorite fruit)—she will forever dream about all the different fruits she ate.

Now pursuing family medicine, Natasha hopes to continue connecting with patients in meaningful, community-centered ways. She wants to be the physician patients trust, talk to, and come to for both guidance and comfort. She’s especially excited about the full scope of family medicine, from procedures to lifestyle medicine (because let’s be real—she will absolutely try to talk you into strength training if you’re not already doing it).

In her free time, Natasha loves strength training (though she’s currently figuring out if “becoming a runner” is a life choice or just a temporary crisis), experimenting with TikTok recipes, and pretending she didn’t just buy another oversized thrifted sweater. She enjoys exploring new coffee shops, game nights with her family (where Uno gets very competitive), and traveling anywhere around the world with good food she hasn’t tried yet.