Melinda C Ruberg, MD

Dr. Mel Ruberg (like "iceburg" with a "rue") is a Family Medicine Physician currently practicing as both a hospitalist and a primary care provider at Norton West Louisville Hospital. Her goal is to bridge the care gap from hospital to clinic, and prevent patients from needing the hospital as much as possible. She also serves as the Medical Director where her goal is to create the most compassionate medical team in the country. 

She was born and raised in Kentucky, earned her medical degree from University of Louisville Medical School and completed her residency training at Oregon Health & Science Center in Portland, Oregon.

In Oregon she completed an extra year of residency in which she primarily worked with pregnant women and young families with substance use disorders (commonly known as addiction), and she credits much of what she knows about practicing patient centered and compassionate care to what these incredible patients taught her about resiliency. She also completed extra training in office based procedures including complex skin biopsies, vasectomies, circumcisions, ultrasound guided joint injections and ultrasound guided procedures such as paracentesis and thoracentesis, and contraceptive management. 

She believes that any patient has the ability to transform a community and treats them like they are one of her many family members (she has over 30 aunts and uncles so it’s pretty easy for her to do). She believes that the foundation of a happy life is having your basic needs met (like food, shelter, security) and then health - but what this means is different for every patient. 

Her commitment to her patients are as follows: 

1. Advocate for excellent care with specialists when patients are needing specialty care. Communicate with specialists to make sure that we are all on the same page working towards overall health and wellbeing. 
2. Say “I don’t know” when appropriate, and help find the answer when this occurs. 
3. Use her privilege to help advocate for patients on a medical, social and political level. 

If establishing care with her, she recommends considering the following questions before the first office visit: 

1. What kind of poor experiences have you had in healthcare and how can we work together to avoid this in the future? 
2. What are you eating and what is your relationship with food? 
3. How are you sleeping and what is your relationship with stress? 

When she is not working she spends almost all of her free time outside with her wonderful French Canadian husband and playing in the dirt with her two young children.