Brenda Fann

Dr. Brenda Fann, who is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, works at Rush-Copley Hospital as an emergency room physician and volunteers at a free health clinic.

Tri City Health Partnership (TCHP) is a free medical clinic that serves low-income residents of central Kane County who do not have health insurance benefits. Dr. Fann is the volunteer Medical Director of Chronic Care for the clinic and was instrumental in establishing two specialty clinics for asthma and hypertension.

As a volunteer physician at the clinic, she provides care to patients of all ages during her monthly shift. Dr. Fann's compassion for the patients she helps at TCHP is exemplified in a young man whose life she saved. Wade had been a patient at TCHP for two years, receiving care for his high blood pressure, but obviously also suffering the ill effects of alcoholism. Knowing that Wade would die if he continued on this path, she took Wade under her wing, made sure his appointments were always scheduled during one of her shifts, and bonded so well with this young man, that she convinced him to stop drinking and enter the hospital for treatment. Afterward, Wade began to turn his life around and six months later looked so much better. His transformation was described as “simply amazing.”