Family Health Center

The CSM Family Health Center is a residency-based Family Medicine provider sponsored by Columbia St. Mary’s in collaboration with the Medical College of Wisconsin. The Family Health Center provides primary care to more than 9,000 individuals most from the Riverwest and Harambee communities of Milwaukee. Many of the Center employees are members of those communities. The Family Health Center accepts most insurance programs, including private insurances as well as Medicare, Medical Assistance, BadgerCare and Healthy Start programs.

As a residency training program, the Family Health Center benefits from academic support of the Medical College of Wisconsin, including faculty who provide community health experience, mental health training, and extensive experience in family systems and family health.  

Many of the Center’s patients have limited incomes and resources. The Center provides case managers and nursing support that focuses on the needs of people in poverty, people with mental illness and people with need for social or emotional support. A parent education program and support group focuses on the challenges of parenting for young parents. In addition, the Center provides educational and support programs for Diabetes and Asthma. Center employees benefit from an extensive staff education program to support their work with complex patients and family systems.
 
When the Center opened at its present location of Humboldt and North Avenue in 2003, many advocates and community leaders celebrated the addition of a new primary care provider to the area. The Center has returned the hospitality by serving as one of the founding members of the Riverwest Health Initiative, a health improvement collaboration for the Center’s service area.  

The Center has responded well to its dual mission of providing high quality health care to community members and serving as an excellent training program for future physicians.

Patient Story

I provide medical care to an over-60 year old woman who has been through many changes in her life; but she inspires me with a great spirit of determination and resiliency. She and her husband had moved to Wisconsin many years ago from their home in Arkansas. Her husband had been a bishop in a local church in their home town. They came to Milwaukee and purchased their home before his untimely death. She lives now alone in the home in a neighborhood that has been steadily deteriorating.
 
Yet she comes on time to each of her appointments, dressed “to the nines” as a sign of respect for me and for our work together. She has a complicated diabetic situation that takes our cooperative efforts to manage. Management includes paying attention to the many stresses in her life -- primarily a house that needs repair and relatives who attempt to take advantage of her. Working with community resources, slowly things have improved. We worked with a Legal Aid attorney to help with a restraining order to control the abusive relatives and we connected with a community group to repair her home. Together, we have dealt with her stresses and managed her diabetes. She is a very cool lady with a great sense of pride and strong spirituality. With all of these resources and with our collaboration, we have worked to beat the odds and maintain her health.

CSM Family Health Center Faculty

Contact Information

Columbia St. Mary's Family Health Center
1121 E. North Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53212

Phil Kissack, Family Health Center Manager
T:  (414) 267-6580

Clinic Hours
Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.