Written by Doug Goodnough
Choosing a college is often a mix of emotions and experiences for many high school students.
For Kelsey Berlin Neitzel, D.O., ’10, it was more of a scientific process. But not at first.
Her older sister, Lindsay Berlin Ogle, ’02, had graduated from Hillsdale College, and Neitzel decided that she was not going to follow in her footsteps.
“I wanted to be a science major, and I had my heart set on Pepperdine. I was going to be on the beach,” she said of her early decision-making process as a high school senior.
However, her parents insisted on visiting Hillsdale, and here’s where the science part begins.
“OK, I will do that,” she recalled. “I’ll go and see Lindsay’s school, and then we can put this to rest.”
During her Hillsdale visit, she sat in on an organic chemistry class.
“The next thing, the professor comes in and hands out a test,” Neitzel said.
When the professor realized Kelsey and her mother were visiting, she walked them over to another class where instruction was taking place.
“She was actually the dean of the sciences at the time, and I was just so blown away that she trusted all these 18-year-old kids not to cheat on a test,” she said. “What kind of honorable people were going to school here? And then she cared enough to come back and have a conversation with me. I decided that these are the people that I want to learn from and be around. And then I got a scholarship. I had totally changed my perspective on Hillsdale.”
She was glad she did. Dr. Neitzel said Hillsdale’s education helped her reach her goal of becoming a doctor. She is now working part-time as a physician for Kaiser Permanente while she and her husband are raising a family in the Denver, Colorado, area.
After attending medical school at Des Moines (Iowa) University, she completed a one-year assignment in Michigan, then a residency in family medicine and fellowship in sports medicine in Wichita, Kansas.
“The program that I went to is what we call a full scope family medicine,” Dr. Neitzel said. “I trained not only in outpatient clinic family medicine, but I also delivered babies—250 babies in residency. We did all of our own inpatient medicine as well. We saw our own patients in the hospital and in the ICU, and we did our own inpatient pediatrics. I got a large breadth of medical training.”
The Nebraska native met her eventual husband, Kevin, who is an aerospace engineer, during her time in Kansas. The goal was to settle somewhere in the Midwest and raise a family, with Kelsey setting up a family practice.
“My ideal job would have been full scope family medicine in a small town—delivering babies, doing some ER shifts, seeing patients in the clinic. Kind of being that old-time family medicine doc,” she said. “It’s not quite the path my life took.”
Her husband had a job opportunity in the Denver area, and they decided to settle in Parker, a Denver suburb, in 2018. For the first year or so, Dr. Neitzel worked as a locum tenens (temporary physician) in the area, helping to provide health care for small towns on a temporary basis.
“It gave me a lot of flexibility,” she said. “I could pick where I wanted to go and how often I wanted to work. I actually really loved it.”
However, after the birth of their first child (they now have three sons), she was looking for a little more stability. Her current position with Kaiser Permanente provides that. She now works about three days a week at an outpatient clinic.
“It’s general practice family medicine,” she said of her current role. “I see everyone from a two-week-old newborn to somebody who is in their 90s. There is always a variety. It keeps me in medicine but also gives me a bit more time at home with our family.”
Once her children get a little older, she said she is considering opening her own direct primary care practice.
“I like that, because it’s capitalism at its best,” Dr. Neitzel said of direct primary care, which doesn’t accept insurance. “You can set your prices. They’re transparent. Your patients know what they’re getting. You’re cutting out all the people who are taking a share.”
She and her husband are involved in their children’s youth sports programs, as well as following University of Nebraska volleyball. They host a small group every week for young families and are involved in their church community.
Although she didn’t get her beach experience at Hillsdale, Dr. Neitzel said she is grateful for what she received from her alma mater and applies it to her life and career every day.
“I really appreciate that Hillsdale taught me to think critically,” said Dr. Neitzel, who was involved in the Pi Beta Phi sorority while on campus and tutored low-income children in the Hillsdale area. “I have so many patients who appreciate having a conversation instead of being told, ‘Well, this is the guideline. You have to do it.’ It should be a risk/benefit discussion specific to the patient. My job as a physician is to give you information and to help you decide what is best for you. It is your job as the patient to make the best decision for yourself.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Published in December 2025
