She Came Home to Tackle ‘Scrappy Area of Medicine’

Growing up in Flagstaff, Arizona, gave Kimberly Winsor, MD, an opportunity to experience the challenges of rural medicine and identify opportunities for improvements. It’s why she came back home after completing her diagnostic radiology training in Phoenix and Tucson. 

More than a two-hour drive from Phoenix, Northern Arizona and the surrounding area are home to the Navajo Nation, the largest American Indian reservation in the country, spanning approximately 27,000 square miles. It stretches into New Mexico and Utah and is a remote area that often lacks sufficient healthcare resources. 

“I joined a group here when I finished training,” Dr. Winsor said. “I noticed we had a lot of patients coming from the Navajo Nation, many with horrifically advanced breast cancer cases where the patient’s care had been significantly delayed.” 

Dr. Winsor decided to go out on her own to provide services to those in need. She and her business partner and sonographer, Chilali Vian, travel across Northern Arizona to see patients, including at a breast ultrasound clinic they started in the Navajo community of Chinle, which is a three-hour drive from Flagstaff. 

The two spend a couple of days at a time at the clinic because of the long drive. Dr. Winsor sees it as a small price to pay to provide coverage that otherwise might not exist. 

“I’m an independent contractor and I work at multiple sites on the Navajo Nation,” she said. “I like it because I can pick and choose where I see that there’s need and I can go to places much more easily than trying to encourage a private practice to put in the resources, the time, and the money to do something like this.” 

The clinic has been running for more than two years, and Dr. Winsor is making noticeable progress. 

“We went from seeing patients who had been called back from a screening mammogram more than a year prior to catching up on a backlog of cases and now finally seeing patients with more recent concerns or callbacks,” she said. 

Dr. Winsor understands why some members of the Navajo Nation haven’t had regular screenings or followed up when something concerning was found. Many communities lack even basic services that most people take for granted. 

“A lot of our patients don’t have running water or electricity,” she said. “There are many extraneous factors that keep them from getting their regular cancer screenings. That’s what we’re trying to remedy.” 

Dr. Winsor serves more than the Native American population. Chilali  started Sedona Diagnostic Ultrasound and brought her on board as a provider and business partner. The clinic offers an option in another area where providers are scarce, operating out of multiple locations in Sedona, Cottonwood, and Flagstaff, and occasionally providing house calls. 

“(Chilali) was trying to respond to a need among rural patients in Northern Arizona,” she said. “We’re very spread out up here. There’s not a lot of places to get care and many of our disabled and chronically ill patients have a difficult time getting to some of the facilities.” 

Dr. Winsor makes time to give back to her profession. Last year, she joined the ABR’s Diagnostic Radiology Continuing Certification Advisory Committee after an invitation from the group’s chair, Mimi Newell, MD. She has enjoyed working with fellow diplomates to keep the program educational and worthwhile for their peers. 

“I like to learn more about how these processes work and be part of helping it work for other people,” Dr. Winsor said. “It’s been really exciting to understand more about the behind-the-scenes process.” 

Dr. Newell met Dr. Winsor through their volunteer work with the American College of Radiology. She could see her colleague’s potential to contribute to her specialty and the ABR. 

“Dr. Winsor is an amazing practitioner and advocate for our specialty and patients,” she said. “She is involved on so many fronts, and so effectively. Meeting her in person is seeing the goodness that she emanates.” 

Dr. Winsor hopes to expand her ABR duties. With the DR Oral Certifying Exam coming in 2028, she would like to be picked to serve as an examiner. She would bring a different perspective to the role. Not many ABR volunteers have similar resumes. 

“I always felt like I didn’t fit in to a lot of these well-established institutions,” Dr. Winsor said. “I felt kind of like an odd duck and I wanted something more adventurous. I think of myself as being in a more scrappy area of medicine that requires creativity and resourcefulness. I didn’t know that’s necessarily what I wanted, but now that I’m doing it, it’s clear that’s where I was always headed.”