Rachelina Portolesi Bartlett Kvietkus, MD

Ever since I was 4 years old, I dreamed of going to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame and becom­ing a doc­tor — high hopes for the first-gen­er­a­tion daugh­ter of Ital­ian immi­grants that owned a tai­lor shop. With hard work and deter­mi­na­tion, plus end­less love and sup­port from my fam­i­ly, I par­tic­i­pat­ed in numer­ous activ­i­ties in high school and grad­u­at­ed Vale­dic­to­ri­an of her class at Mishawa­ka High School. I went on to study and do research in the Hon­ors Pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame, receiv­ing my under­grad­u­ate degree of a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in 1989. I then com­plet­ed my med­ical degree with 4 years at the Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Grad­u­ate School of Med­i­cine in Indi­anapo­lis pri­or to doing my res­i­den­cy in Inter­nal Med­i­cine at the Mayo Grad­u­ate School of Med­i­cine in Rochester, MN. I have pub­lished papers in the Mayo Clin­ic Pro­ceed­ings. I returned in 1996 to the South Bend area to prac­tice med­i­cine and have had exten­sive expe­ri­ence over the years in treat­ing com­plex patients pri­or to join­ing The South Bend Clinic.