Meet Our Team
Five concierge physician MDs and one doctorate-level nurse practitioner.
Daniel S. Frank, MD
Daniel S. Frank, MD is a board-certified internist with over 30 years of practice experience. He is a magna cum laude graduate of UCLA in neuroscience. Dr. Frank attended medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington and at UCLA. He founded MedNorthwest in 2002, following a 12 year career in emergency medicine, primarily at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. Dr. Frank enjoys cycling, photography, and coding in C# and SQL Server. (Dr. Frank is a Seattle Magazine 2023 “Top Doctor” and a Castle Connolly 2024 and 2025 “Top Doctor.” These are completely meaningless awards, but we throw them in here anyway.)
Melissa Schorn Kester, DNP
Melissa Schorn Kester, DNP is a doctorate-level, board-certified nurse practitioner. A native midwestener, she obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing with honors from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and her Doctorate of Nursing Practice from the University of Washington, one of the best programs in the country. She worked as a nurse practitioner in an academic setting at the University of Washington for five years before joining MedNorthwest. As a nurse practitioner, she has a full scope-of-practice license and can perform all the functions of a physician. Melissa has almost two decades of experience in health care and is proud to serve as the PCP for several physicians who are themselves patients here at MedNorthwest. In addition, she has held several leadership and teaching positions during her career. Melissa’s approach to patient care is to be an excellent listener, radiate kindness, and bring the highest quality scientific research to bear on patient’s problems. When not taking care of temperamental surgeons, Melissa enjoys spending time with her husband and family, reading, cross country skiing, hiking, running with her dog, and boating.
Martha Fitelson, MD
Dr. Fitelson is a Seattle native and board-certified internist with undergraduate degrees in microbiology and psychology from the University of Washington. After her undergraduate education, she worked in a research lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center on vaccine development. She also served on a humanitarian mission to Ecuador. She then returned to UW for her MD degree, followed by a residency in internal medicine at Virginia Mason Medical Center here in Seattle. Before joining MedNorthwest, Dr. Fitelson worked as an internist for five years in the Providence Health system where she also taught and mentored medical students and residents. In addition to her regular duties, and because of her particularly strong bedside manner and humanistic skills, she was selected by her physician colleagues to staff the Palliative Care Service at Providence which provides comfort care to dying patients. Serving as an internal medicine specialist, Dr. Fitelson particularly enjoys the close relationships she develops with patients and wants to be a strong advocate for their health. In addition to a love of medicine, Dr. Fitelson enjoys gardening, playing the guitar, spending time with her husband and extended family, and letting her cat, Ollie, run the household.
Brian Bertsche, MD
Dr. Bertsche is a family medicine physician who grew up in Chicago. He did his undergraduate education at Notre Dame, where he earned a B.A. in economics while completing his pre-medical science requirements. He continued at Notre Dame for a Master of Education and then spent the next two years teaching middle school mathematics in Brownsville, Texas. What temporary insanity led Dr. Bertsche to this particular kind of employment in Brownsville is unknown, but the result is that he is an excellent communicator, extremely patient, and can solve pre-algebra word problems without much difficulty.
Dr. Bertsche then went on to Texas A&M where he received his MD degree and was nominated to the Gold Humanism Honor Society. He has published articles on the management of depression in older adults and on the genetic basis of neurologic disorders. His desire to train in a large academic medical center and love of the outdoors led him to do his family medicine residency at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. His desire to not spend the rest of his life in Utah led him to MedNorthwest in Seattle, where he can practice great medicine and enjoy the many advantages of life in the Pacific Northwest.
Dr. Bertsche will be joining our group in early September 2025.
Roshan S. Panchanathan, MD
Roshan Panchanathan, MD (“Dr. P” for short) is a board-certified internist. Dr. P grew up in beautiful Gilbert, Arizona and holds a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley. He received his MD degree from the University of Arizona, where he was nominated by his peers to the Gold Humanism Honors Society. His internal medicine residency was completed at the University of Washington. Dr. P managed to produce nine peer-reviewed papers during his education, including several where he was first author, and also has many poster presentations and abstracts. He enjoys building meaningful relationships with his patients and helping them develop a personalized plan to achieve their health goals. As a general internist, Dr. P especially appreciates the broad mastery of medicine that a true generalist can bring to patients. He loves sports, including basketball, pickleball, and tennis. Dr. P also likes to play the guitar and spend time with family and friends. He is a proud new father in 2024.
Phil Kramer, MD
(Note: The above image appears to be Dr. Kramer’s high school graduation photograph from 2013, but we can assure you he is in his 30s and we will get an updated photo soon.)
Dr. Kramer is a family medicine physician who grew up in Montreal and began his studies at Dawson College in Quebec where he made Honor Roll all four semesters. He was awarded an academic scholarship to McGill University (the “Harvard of Canada,” as it is called) where he completed his pre-medical curriculum. Dr. Kramer stayed at McGill to earn his MD degree where he was on the Dean’s Honor Roll, placing in the top 10% of the class. Drawn to the intense intellectual challenges of a career in radiology, he began his training in that specialty at the University of Montreal. However, after several years, Dr. Kramer felt that he really wanted to have close relationships with patients and to become a complete physician. He switched to family medicine in order to focus his expertise on primary care. He has published papers on Parkinson disease and myasthenia gravis and done research in nuclear medicine and language disorders. Dr. Kramer is a native English speaker, but also fluent in Hebrew and French, and speaks some Japanese and a bit of Mandarin. A dual US-Canadian national, he refuses to say which country is better, but we all know their paper money looks way cooler, and we are better at spelling “color” and pronouncing “about.” Dr. Kramer enjoys spending his free time hiking with his dogs Kendall and Chewy, cross-country skiing, and being with his wife Gloria.
Dr. Kramer will be joining MedNorthwest in January 2026.
Melia Shorr (Practice Manager)
Melia Shorr is MedNorthwest’s practice manager who joined our office in 2015. She grew up in Bellevue and studied at the University of Washington. Her responsibilities include hiring, training, and mentoring her team of medical assistants, managing the day-to-day operations of the office, supervising the work of the many vendors and small businesses that assist the practice, and supporting all of the physicians and nurse practitioners at MedNorthwest. In addition, she continues to provide expert bedside care to our patients. On rare occasions, such as unexpected school closures, we’ve been fortunate to have an even more capable employee, Melia’s daughter, here in the office, where she uses up our office supplies and creates stunning art projects.
Julianne Tran
Julianne is a medical assistant who has been with MedNorthwest since 2020. She handles a wide variety of both administrative and medical assisting duties. Julianne received her bachelor’s degree in Medical Anthropology and Global Health at the University of Washington and has a background in primary care. She was born and raised in Washington and is musically quite gifted, having played over 10 instruments. She is also an alumni of the Husky Marching Band. Go Dawgs! Julianne’s affinity for music certainly explains her love for the boy band group, BTS. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, finding new restaurants, playing the piano, reading, and spending time with her friends, family, and her two cats, Oliver and Peaches.
Danielle Alioto
“Dani” is a medical assistant who grew up in Washington State and completed her bachelor’s degree in anthropology at CWU. She then continued her education with additional coursework in anatomy, physiology, microbiology, and organic chemistry. She has worked as a medical assistant since 2017, initially in Moscow, Russia (actually Idaho, but Russia sounds more exotic), and then at Harborview before joining MedNorthwest. Dani handles a variety of front and back-office duties. In her free time, Dani enjoys hiking with her dog Barkley, reading mystery novels, and knitting.
Alex Hernandez
Alex was born and raised in Los Angeles. She studied at Cal State LA and started her healthcare career at Los Angeles Downtown Medical Center, a 269 bed hospital about a mile from Dodger Stadium. In that role, she served as an executive assistant to senior management and also worked as a relief pitcher for the Dodgers during home games. She then helped start and run an internal medicine practice in Los Angeles. Looking for a change of scenery, she moved to Seattle and joined MedNorthwest. Alex is a medical assistant with a variety of front-office and back-office duties, including taking vitals, drawing blood, giving vaccines, fighting insurance companies, and generally advocating for patients. Alex is an avid reader, a dedicated sports fan, and a great cat and dog mom. She loves spending time with friends and family.
Dana Vasilchuk
Dana (pronounced “Donna”) has a degree in applied science from Bellevue College and formerly worked in patient care at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She also spent several years as a manager for a clinical laboratory in Tukwila. After leaving her position at the University of Washington, she did a one-year educational program in software development but ultimately decided that she would rather work with people and not write computer code all day long. At MedNorthwest, Dana practices the full scope of medical assisting, including blood draws, vaccines, vital signs, scheduling patients, medical transcription, and yelling at insurance companies. In her spare time, she likes weightlifting and volleyball. Although Dana was born in Renton, she is fluent in Russian. When not working here, she is a spy for the CIA and translates communications intercepted from the Kremlin.
Taylor Steuben
Taylor is a Pacific Northwest native who grew up in Yacolt, WA and received a B.A with honors from WSU in business administration. She initially worked in HR as a recruiter, hunting down tech talent for a contract recruiting firm and later doing the same work for Tesla, although she did not receive a free Tesla as part of her compensation package. She then switched into healthcare, working as a patient care coordinator for a counseling center in Kirkland. Taylor has been a Seattle resident and proud Seahawks fan since 2019 and enjoys hiking, backpacking, and running in her spare time.
Melissa Lydon
Melissa holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Harding University but actually began her career in tech, working as a contractor for Microsoft on the Bing search engine. After five years in that role, and realizing that no one uses Bing, she moved to a new position managing the front office for a church in Bellevue. After that, she took a role overseeing contracting in the financial services industry. Wanting to return to her educational roots in human services and to provide direct care to patients, Melissa joined MedNorthwest. Originally from Syracuse, NY, “the snowiest city in the country,” she moved in 2012 to Seattle, “the rainiest city in the country.” In her free time, she is a Mariners fan and a proud mom to her cat, Snuffles. Melissa has outstanding communication and organizational skills and multiple rave reviews on her LinkedIn page. Snuffles does not—as of yet—have his own LinkedIn page.
Get in touch
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