Stephen Ettinger

Background

About Stephen Ettinger

I've taken a circuitous path to Medicine that started in Eastern Washington, where I first witnessed the incredible impact my parents were able to have as healthcare providers in our small community. I attended Montana State University Bozeman, studying exercise physiology, while concurrently mountain bike racing at an elite level. After graduating from MSU in 2011, I moved to Switzerland (and later Germany) where I spent four years racing for BMC Mountain Bike Racing team, and cutting my teeth as an elite rider. In 2015 I signed with Sho-Air/Cannondale which brought a return to a full time residence in North America, but I continued to race an entire World Cup schedule. With the 2016 Olympics approaching and the sponsor/team paradigm changing in the sport, I decided to create my own racing project, alongside RideBiker Alliance, Focus Bikes, Shimano and Clif Bar. That project was a success, but came to a conclusion at the end of 2017 when I decided to retire. Over a career that spanned a decade I won Five National Championships, landed on World Cup podiums, and represented the US at nine World Championships. In late 2017 I pivoted back to my roots and began to pursue medicine, a decision driven by my desire to contribute in a meaningful way to the communities that had become close to my heart. I attend medical school at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, and will be applying to Emergency Medicine residency programs in Fall 2021. Emergency medicine intersects with many of my interests/passions within medicine, including underserved and social medicine, climate change, pre-hospital medicine, and diagnostic reasoning. I'm a former member of the Bellingham Mountain Rescue group, and look forward to a day when I can again live in the Mountains!