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Alumni of UNE’s medical school make a difference in rural Maine
Many who went to start their careers in remote regions of the state chose to stay for the the natural beauty, sense of community, and rewarding work
When Steven Weisberger, D.O., ’83, graduated from the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine 42 years ago, he wanted to practice medicine in Portland, Maine, where he did his residency. How Weisberger ended up running a family practice in a remote fishing village came down to a chance meeting with a Downeast doctor who recruited him there. Why Weisberger stayed came down to the good people of Jonesport, Maine.
“I loved the people,” Weisberger said. “We went there with the idea that we were going to be there for only four years. But after two years, we were smitten. We built a house, raised our family, and stayed and practiced for 33 years until we retired. My wife, Teri, and I used to say as soon as we crossed the line into Washington County while driving home, all the stress fell away.”
Weisberger’s continued calling to provide health care in rural areas comes from a deep-seated desire to help underserved communities. It’s a common thread through the personal stories of many UNE medical school graduates who work in rural Maine, said Guy DeFeo, UNE’s senior associate dean for Clinical Education in the University’s medical school.
Since UNE’s medical school was founded in 1978, it’s graduated nearly 5,000 students, including between 600 to 700 who chose to practice in Maine. DeFeo said a large percentage of those physicians chose to serve in rural locations.
Drawn by the natural beauty, the sense of community, and the critical need, graduates of UNE’s medical school have spent long careers in rural Maine towns such as Eastport and Calais near New Brunswick, Canada; Presque Isle, Caribou, and Houlton in far northern Maine; and Greenville beside Moosehead Lake, a western Maine town with a year-round population of just 1,400.
For Roger Pelli, D.O. ’86, the iconic North Maine Woods and slower pace in northern Maine lured him and his wife, Lynn, and convinced them to raise their two boys there – despite the long winters. Pelli said his family loved snowmobiling, snowshoeing, camping, and fishing in the northern forestland.
“I wanted to practice in a rural area where I made a difference,” Pelli said. “I wanted to be where I could truly be a physician. In the bigger cities, there are high-rise buildings full of doctor’s offices. I didn’t want any part of that.”
Pelli first went to northern Maine to serve in Ashland as a physician assistant in 1977. After five years, he left to enroll in UNE’s medical school with the intent to return. The town of Ashland and five surrounding communities paid Pelli’s medical school tuition costs under the condition he returned to Ashland to run the family practice.
But even after paying off the loan, Pelli wanted to stay in northern Maine. His family moved to nearby Presque Isle, where he ran a family practice and worked at the local hospital before retiring in 2021.
“I boil it down to the fact that I’m appreciated here,” said Pelli, a native of Rhode Island. “I’m appreciated as a physician, and as a person, as a citizen and resident. I belong here. My wife feels that she belongs here. There’s no money that can pay for that. It’s worth its weight in gold.”
Like Pelli, Weisberger first went to Jonesport, Maine, to fulfill a National Health Service Corp commitment that paid his medical school costs in exchange for four years of service in a rural area of medical need. A chance meeting with John Gaddis, D.O., who was from the Downeast region, convinced Weisberger to apply for the position. Soon after, Weisberger and his wife, Teri, arrived at the Arnold Memorial Medical Center in Jonesport in 1985 ready to work as a health care team, since Teri Weisberger was a board-certified family nurse practitioner.
During the first 10 years, Weisberger added three to four physician assistants and nurse practitioners to the center’s staff to help serve the 3,000 patients from the surrounding five towns. Almost immediately, the practice outgrew the old Victorian home in downtown Jonesport where it was located.
So, in 1998, Weisberger, along with a local group of community supporters, secured a federal grant to build a new, high-tech health center that doubled the space of the practice and provided badly needed parking for the patients. Yet, despite the major upgrade, Weisberger continued to prioritize the house calls that became a staple of his practice.
“The people in town really grew to love him,” said Andy Swift, a mechanic whose family of four were all patients of Weisberger's at the time. “They picked up on the fact that he really cared for them. There was no ego involved. The waiting room was always full.”
In the mid-1990s when Oxycontin started showing up in Washington County, Weisberger took courses and studied pain management to become proficient on addiction and dependence and alternative pain treatments.
Matt Cowan, P.A., who worked for Weisberger as a physician assistant, called him innovative for the way Weisberger approached the unraveling opioid crisis that killed young people in Washington County on a nearly monthly basis. Cowan said Weisberger’s empathy for the victims was as vast as the large county, one of the poorest in the country.
“Everyone thought these people were nasty, horrible drug addicts. Steve taught me that you treat the problem, you don’t judge for income or appearance,” Cowan said. “When you don't judge and just ask questions, people feel safe, and they tend to respond. He taught me that.”
Over the years, Weisberger won awards, including the Maine Osteopathic Association’s Young Family Practitioner of the Year, its Physician of the Year award, and its Distinguished Service Award. The American Osteopathic Association nominated Weisberger as a Mentor of the Year in 2004. But the call to help those in need didn’t end when he retired as a family practitioner.
Soon after Steve and Teri Weisberger retired to the Belgrade Lakes in central Maine, he co-founded Northwest Winds Recovery in Bangor with Joyce Warren, LADC, CCS, a licensed alcohol and drug counselor. Each month, they help between 30 to 40 people from rural communities around Bangor navigate opioid addiction and build productive lives.
“I take care of their mental health needs as well as their addiction issues. And every one of my patients has my phone number,” Weisberger said.
Weisberger lays most of the credit for helping those patients squarely with Warren, who serves as Northwest Winds’ clinical director. But Warren shook her head as she explained how much of the center’s success lies with Weisberger, who regularly meets with patients on Telehealth calls, many at a moment’s notice.
“Usually, the reason people relapse is because they need to get in to see someone. Steve always wants to be available for them,” Warren said. “He’s the only provider I know who gives out his personal cell. He lets his patients call him any time. He just did the other night with a woman who was released from prison. His patients just love him.”