Meet Our Team

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.)

View Dr. Frank’s video

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.

View Melissa Schorn Kester’s video

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 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.

View Dr. Panchanathan’s video

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.

View Melia’s video

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.

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.

Hunter is a Navy brat who grew up in Sheridan, Wyoming. Her late father was a Navy SEAL on famed SEAL Team Six, and her mom served in the Navy as a petty officer first class. Her younger brother is a corpsman on the USS Comstock. After completing her medical assistant training, she worked in two specialty areas for about four years before moving to Seattle and joining MedNorthwest. Hunter prefers working as a generalist and really enjoys the wide variety of conditions that are seen in primary care. She practices the full scope of medical assisting on both the clinical and administrative sides. When not working, Hunter likes spending time with her two dogs, sailing, and hiking. (Note: Because of her family background in the military, it is recommended that you salute Hunter prior to all blood draws and flu vaccines.)