This outstanding achievement in Family Medicine is unlike any other in West Virginia. The emphasis of this award is to acknowledge not only professional success, but the selfless promotion of the practice of family medicine throughout our region through community service, teaching and mentoring, and serving as a resource to future family physicians.
Dr. Carroll Christiansen graduated in 1980 from Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University in Maywood, IL. He completed his family practice residency in 1983 at United Hospital Center in Clarksburg, WV. Since 1983, his entire career has been built in one rural town—Spencer, West Virginia—where he has offered comprehensive, compassionate care to thousands. Seeing patients in the office, hospital, nursing home, and formerly doing obstetrics and full scope behavioral health/psychiatry care, there is no one else in WV who lives, breathes, and personifies the full scope and values of family medicine as he does. He leads in both community service and education, as well, and loves to teach. As Clinical Assistant Professor at both Marshall University School of Medicine and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, he has mentored generations of medical students and residents in the values of service, compassion, clinical skills, and rural care. His teaching extends beyond the clinic—modeling how a physician can build lasting relationships with patients while advancing clinical excellence. He has also been an anchor for collaboration between primary care, behavioral health, and hospital systems in Roane County, showing what is possible when a physician sees the entire community as their patient.
