Return to roots

If anyone wanted to pinpoint an example of the link between what students learn at OUWB and how that translates to patient care, they could look to Elizabeth Paluga, M.D.

Paluga (nee White) graduated from OUWB’s charter class in 2015.

Since then, she’s completed residency at University of Michigan, practiced at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago (where she also served on faculty at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine), and returned to Michigan Medicine.

In late 2025, she returned to the region where her medical training began and opened a new internal medicine practice in Birmingham, Michigan.  It’s a relationship-based practice – an approach that clearly traces to the beginning of her medical training at OUWB and Corewell Health.

“I fondly remember being here and really learning how to take care of people,” she says. “Those core memories are the foundation of my career.”

‘A new opportunity’

Paluga grew up in Jackson, Michigan, and attended Lumen Christi Catholic High School. She was valedictorian, homecoming queen, and an all-state tennis player. She also led an effort to start a middle school tennis team.  

She completed her undergraduate degree in pre-professional studies at University of Notre Dame.  Originally, Paluga envisioned a career in business, but her interests switched to medicine after volunteering at Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana.

Specifically, she worked in the neonatal intensive care unit and emergency department, doing whatever she could do to help and soaking it all in.

“I fell in love with the idea of the hospital — the teams and everybody working together to care for patients,” she says. “I loved it. I saw the light and said, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

The then-new OUWB was especially appealing to Paluga. She wanted to attend medical school in Michigan, liked the promise of a smaller class size, the ability to learn from doctors at legacy Beaumont, and the overall approach to medical education.

“What struck me most about OUWB was the individualized attention and care for the students and the desire to create a different type of doctor,” she says. “I loved the overall message from (OUWB Founding Dean Robert Folberg, M.D.) and the whole admissions team — they told us that they were with us every step of the way and really invested in making doctors who not only know the science, but the art of medicine.”

Another appealing aspect of OUWB was the fact that it was new. Paluga would be a member of the school’s charter class.

“I felt like it was a new opportunity to be part of creating something different,” she says. “It felt like the right decision at the time, and it still does today.”

Paluga says she is “very grateful to be back to the community where my medical journey began.”

‘Very prepared’

Paluga says she has many fond memories of OUWB, starting with the good times she had with her roommates, Laura Ortiz (nee Diffenderfer), M.D. and Laurie Bossory, M.D.

She also enjoyed the OUWB program called Promoting Reflection and Individual Growth Through Support and Mentoring (PRISM). PRISM provides a multi-layered system of support, along with a four-year curriculum that focuses on professional identity development, mentoring, and personal reflection as a means of deepening self-awareness. Monthly sessions create opportunities for developing these skills through small-group discussions facilitated by physician mentors.

“With our group, everybody joined in, participated, and cared for each other,” says Paluga. “It was a really unique class, and I was fortunate to be part of it.”

She also recalls learning procedures in the OUWB Clinical Skills Center, and working with faculty like Lynda Misra, D.O., founding associate dean for Undergraduate Medical Education, and associate professor, Department of Internal Medicine, and Nelia Afonso, M.D., Dean’s Distinguished Professor and founding faculty member at OUWB.

Among her achievements at OUWB, Paluga was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society and the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society.

When she matched at University of Michigan, she says she felt “very prepared.” It was during residency, too, that she realized how much she loved primary care medicine.

After graduating from residency in 2018, Paluga and her husband, Dan, moved to Chicago. (The couple married right before she started residency in 2015.) She had a position with Northwestern Medicine where she “had a great group of mentors.”  She also served in the faculty at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

She and Dan also had their first daughter, Caroline, in December 2019. (They’ve had two more daughters, Emma and Lillian.) Paluga returned to work on March 1, 2020 — just in time for the COVID-19 global pandemic. With a desire to return to Michigan, in early 2021 the Palugas returned to Ann Arbor, where she worked at an outpatient clinic for Michigan Medicine and served as an assistant professor of Internal Medicine until early 2025.

‘Excited to welcome new patients’

In 2025, Paluga opened a private practice called Enhanced Internal Medicine.

The practice is “dedicated to highly personalized, relationship-based care.” The practice is membership-based, which means patients pay a fee and all visits to Paluga are covered throughout the year. It’s available for men and women over 18.

According to its website, the model is “best suited for individuals who value a true partnership with their physician. It’s designed for those who want care that goes beyond the basics — comprehensive, connected, and focused on long-term wellness.”

Paluga further describes it as a way to practice medicine on terms that align with her values that are centered on time, access, and relationship.

“It takes away the insurance and institution pressures … things that are not dictated by the patient, but by the system,” she says.

She adds she’s “very grateful to be back to the community where my medical journey began.”

“We’re here and excited to welcome new patients,” she says with a smile.