A Career Built on Compassion: A Physician’s Community Roots
May 8, 2026
Growing up, Claire Lupini-Gohl always noticed how often her parents were helping others in their small rural hometown. Their outward focus on serving the community, both personally and professionally, was transformative.
Claire remembers declaring at a young age she would be a dentist during the week and an ice cream truck driver on the weekend, yet her path turned to medicine as an impactful way to give back to her community.
As an undergraduate, Claire began volunteering at the St. Peter’s Free Clinic in Hillsdale. She was there every week throughout her four years of college – checking in patients, preparing and serving food, and assisting nurses with triage and vitals. She spent her gap year working at the clinic full-time, further solidifying her future as a physician.
“Oftentimes, we would spend four or five hours caring for a few patients – the doctor really wanted to get to know them all,” said Claire. “That experience shaped what I wanted medicine to look like and who I wanted to be.”
She chose the College of Human Medicine because of how well it fit her vision of being a community-driven physician. “I had worked with a few doctors who graduated from the College of Human Medicine and was very inspired by their way of interacting with patients.”
Building on her time at St. Peter’s Free Clinic, Claire was eager to interact with patients as early as she could in medical school. “I wanted to grow and have that human connection with patients that I had experienced at the clinic,” she said.
During a psychiatry clerkship in her third year of medical school, Claire fell in love with the specialty. “There is such a richness to the relationship that psychiatrists have with their patients,” she said. “They’re able to sit with them for long periods of time to discuss what is pressing on their life and what is impacting them on a day-to-day basis. They can walk with them through that and help in any way they can.”
Claire recalls working with a particular psychiatrist who had “words or phrases that she used in very specific, meaningful ways. There was an intention or practice behind it that came from her therapy training and residency.”
The unique approach to compassionate care appealed to Claire. “There’s a creativity in being with patients through both therapy and medicine,” she said. “I can apply everything I’ve learned in medical school and get an opportunity to learn about a whole other toolbox of therapeutic tools in residency.”
Claire reflects on her time at the Midland Regional Campus and how it has shaped the physician she is now.
“The rural program really enhanced my learning experience, especially my rotations in West Branch,” she said. “The healthcare I saw up there was so similar to what I was seeing at the free clinic before I came to medical school. The physicians there know so deeply what the patient life is like and about communities they come from.”
“That’s the kind of physician I want to be – to serve within a community and among the community to give back in as many ways as I can,” Claire said.
After graduation, Claire will immerse herself within a new community in Ann Arbor, where she’ll begin her psychiatry residency at the University of Michigan. One day, she hopes to return to the type of community service that got her so interested in medicine.
“It would be so much fun if [my husband and I] could open a place where there’s free psychiatric advice, and he’s making dinner for everyone in the clinic. Or even going back to Hillsdale to the free clinic to serve once a month - something like that would be my dream.”
Claire Lupini-Gohl is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and a scholarship recipient of the Ingham County Medical Society Clinical Excellence Award.
By Amy Nienhouse
