Michael Kupkowski, MD, is a primary care physician with over 10 years of experince.  Dr K is now practicing at Windy City Health Partners, located in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago.

About Dr Kupkowski:
I was born in Joliet, Illinois. I grew up most of my life in Illinois with a brief stint in Phoenix, AZ, third through fifth grade. Among other things, Arizona made me appreciative of the outdoors and I’ve been an outdoor enthusiast ever since. I go on annual camping trips around the country and I have been an avid long-distance runner since I was 15 years old.

I attended the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) where I explored the depth and breadth of a large university. I particularly enjoyed a semester-turned-year abroad in Quito, Ecuador, where I studied Spanish and immersed myself in Ecuadorean culture. After returning, I was always looking for opportunities to use my Spanish, whether it was reading, writing or in conversation. I volunteered for El Centro por Los Trabajadores which was run by a priest. I helped local immigrants access local resources including an initiative where we made ID cards to help folks establish the basics many take for granted, like opening a bank account.

I also decided to work at a local addictions center to help them open a Spanish-language DUI-counseling program. As such, I stayed at UIUC for a fifth year to run this program and work as teaching assistant in the Chemistry program. I love teaching and plan to continue this at 2001 W Addison. 

At the end of this, I met my now wife Tiffany, who was already moving to the San Francisco Bay area for a high school teaching position. We had an incredible time in the bay area from 2003 to 2010. I was extremely fortunate and privileged to be selected to the Joint Medical Program at Berkeley–UCSF. Among the highlights was doing a thesis in El Salvador looking at an animal gifting program aimed at improved childhood protein-calorie malnutrition. Going to Ecuador was a life-changing event in undergrad, as was medical school. The informal learning I experienced while living in the bay area nearly paralleled the formal learning in medical school.   

We moved back to Chicago, IL, in 2010 so I could do my Family Medicine residency at MacNeal in Berwyn, IL. We’ve since had two kids, Odette and Kevin, who are 10- and 8-years-old respectively. I enjoy listening to people’s stories. For me, the most powerful part of the clinical encounter is the patient narrative. I am entrusted with and acting steward of these people’s stories and their lives. While the physical exam and diagnostic work up are paramount aspects of the clinical encounter, I find that the diagnosis is often found in the patient narrative above all else and it is important we give people the time and space to own their narrative.