Karen Hopp, MD is Board Certified in both Family Medicine and Psychiatry and practices both specialties in Woodland, California.  After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis with a BS in economics, she developed a diverse business career that led her to health care and medicine.

Working in the business of health care inspired her return to college after 15 years.  Dr. Hopp completed a five-year combined residency program in family medicine and psychiatry at UC Davis School of Medicine and earned academic honors and elections to Alpha Omega Alpha.  For the last two years, Dr. Hopp has attended the Congress of Delegates as a delegate for the Yolo County Chapter. 

I'm a member of AAFP and CAFP because: Primary care is the foundation on which an excellent health care system rests.  The Academy, in California and nationally, represent the interests of family physicians, promotes primary care as a discipline and as an essential health care function, and represents the interests of our patients who benefit from having access to a solid primary care foundation.  No one else, inside or outside the house of medicine, speaks to these issues as convincingly or constructively as does the Academy.

I think the most helpful CAFP resource is: The opportunities to interact with other dedicated family physicians who share my values.

I chose family medicine because: I believe in the concept of a personal physician who is a patient's trusted first contact with the health care system and can be their guide in interacting with the rest of the system.

What/who influenced you to choose family medicine?  I became a family physician with another board certification although I chose family medicine as my specialty even before I applied to medical school. While in my third year, I found passion--psychiatry. Reluctant to give up either, I was encouraged by many family physicians in the greater Sacramento area and the psychiatry faculty at UC Davis to pursue combined training in both fields. 

What is the biggest challenge facing health care today?  Any thoughts on how it could be addressed? The biggest challenge is to have a thoughtful and constructive debate about the problem.  In a time of debate by sound bites, it seems impossible to engage in meaningful dialogue about how to craft the best solution to the problems that I, as a doctor, see daily. I hear one side of the debate arguing against certain aspects of reform from one extreme of this continuum and the other side arguing against other aspects from the other. I don't hear frank, constructive discussion of how to balance these valid competing interests.

How do you spend your free time?  My favorite pastimes are cooking in my gourmet kitchen and watching youth soccer.

How do you champion family medicine? Day in and day out in the trenches of my full-time practice, there is so much work to do that it is hard to justify working less. Although this seems entirely daunting, I advocate for my practice and my patients as a delegate to the Congress of Delegates work with my family physicians colleagues on enacting solutions to the health care challenges I face on a daily basis. I look for opportunities to participate in meaningful forums that address some of the toughest health care questions that challenge our ethical values. 

What do you love about practicing family medicine? Practicing at Woodland Healthcare -- a group setting that is entirely supportive of both family medicine and of my special passion. Given how extraordinarily common mental health issues are in primary care, I appreciate the freedom and flexibility of the specialty of family medicine to integrate mental health care and being part of a group that allows me to share my particular expertise in mental health with my colleagues.

What is your favorite ice cream flavor?  Chocolate sorbet

What book are you currently reading? The Thin Place, a novel by Kathryn Davis

What is your favorite getaway? The family lake cottage in Minnesota

What one sentence advice would you give a new family physician?  Know who you are and what parts of the wide-ranging field of family medicine best suit your strengths and most satisfy you.