If your family loves the idea of living on a peninsula with a lot of shoreline and parks, Door County, Wisconsin may be the place for you. If endless outdoor activities and lots of trails and hiking are your speed, Gainesville, Georgia, or Bangor, Maine, may be more to your liking. And if close to 300 days of sunshine per year soundsperfect, consider Irvine, California.

Door County, Wisconsin

DOOR COUNTY IS KNOWN AS THE CAPE Cod of the Midwest. Both are easternmost land masses. Door County, however, has Green Bay waters on one side and Lake Michigan on the other—and 300 miles of shoreline, five state parks, 20 county parks and 53 other public parks.

Scenic coastal towns, apple and cherry orchards, local shops, wineries and first- class restaurants are found in Door County. Cities, towns and villages include Sturgeon Bay, Egg Harbor, Ephraim and more — and within, visitors find over 100 galleries, shops and museums.

Although tourists tend to visit Door County May through October, there are activities for every season. From hiking and biking to kayaking and relaxing on the beach, the outdoor activities are endless.

“Door County is amazing. It’s a rural area, but you have access to most of the amenities within a reasonable driving distance that you would have in a big city,” says James F. Heise, M.D., MBA, Door County Medical Center’s chief medical officer.

Tourism helps the economy tremendously in Door County. Jon Jarosh, chief communications officer for Destination Door County and a Door County Medical Center board member, says, “There would likely be far less residents here for Door County Medical Center (DCMC) to serve if it weren’t for tourism.”

Heise agrees: “There’s an approximately 30,000 resident population. During tourist season, the population rises to about 250,000.”

“In Door County, you have a high concentration of beaches and just a beautiful area, topography and things like that,” Heise says. “It is really a nice, quiet community and friendly people. It’s a great place to raise kids. My son is now 16; he was 3 when we moved here. We’ve had great experiences with the schools. When he was younger, I could let him ride a bike around and never had to worry about his safety.”

“You get a little bit of everything in Door County,” Heise says. “It really is a four-season area. Outdoor activity is a big thing. There are all kinds of hiking, boating, water skiing and spending time at the beach.” That’s in addition to a number of small theater companies in the area as well.

DCMC serves both Door and Kewaunee counties. The medical center provides a wide range of specialties including primary care, the women’s and children’s center, orthopedics, behavioral health, general surgery, cancer care, a skilled nursing facility, and rehabilitation services facilities among others.

“DCMC is the best place I have ever worked, and I have worked at a lot of large health care facilities,” Heise says. “What’s great here is we are family. Our culture is second to none. We’re not a top-down leadership structure. We want our workforce to come up with solutions or help us to solve problems.”

If you’re looking to practice in a health system that meets the needs of the community and values physician input, while living in an area with great outdoor activities, Door County is the place for you.

Irvine, California

IRVINE IS THE PLACE FOR FAMILIES WHO REJOICE in being outdoors and prefer a mild temperature— the average temperature is 73 degrees, and it sees close to 300 days of sunshine each year. Families enjoy hiking and biking trails, boating, dolphin and whale watching and gondola cruising, among many many otheractivities. Skiing is within driving distance.

Food enthusiasts will enjoy global cuisine featuring delicacies from China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Korea as well as many other countries around the world.

Kid-friendly attractions are plentiful. As in many other locations, families can find movie theaters, skate parks, bowling alleys, bounce parks, etc. However, some venues are unique to Irvine and surrounding cities. Families will want to check out nearby Disneyland, Boomers Irvine, Knotts Berry Farm and more.

Ani Atoian, M.D., is a family medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente Barranca Medical Offices in Irvine. She attended UCLA for her undergraduate degree and wanted to stay close to her family. “The plan was to do my four years of medical school and move back to the Los Angeles area so I could be close to my family,” Atoian says. “However, after living in Irvine for four years, I fell in love with the city. I also met my husband at that time. Irvine was the ideal city for us to raise a family. I never made it back to Los Angeles.”

She says: “I like the open space and the abundance of parks that are everywhere. There’s wider streets, cleaner air, and Irvine is one of the safer cities. I like to work in a city where I do feel safe.”

Irvine is home to UC Irvine. For families with school-aged children, Irvine Unified School District consistently ranks among the finest educational systems in the nation. “Some people will move to Irvine just so they can benefit from the public school system,” Atoian says.

In addition to Kaiser Permanente Barranca Medical Offices, Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Irvine Medical Center is also nearby. Kaiser Permanente is headquartered in Oakland, California, and has 40 hospitals and more than 600 medical offices, 24,000 physicians and close to 220,000 employees.

For a physician seriously considering relocating to Irvine, Misty Bond, executive director of Destination Irvine, says, “Many of Irvine’s 23 hotels offer apartment-style rooms, complete with kitchens and living spaces. Destination Irvine, the city’s tourism division, can help physicians find transitional housing while searching for the perfect home.”

Gainesville, Georgia

GAINESVILLE IS JUST WHAT THE doctor and their family ordered,” says Regina Ingebrigtsen, of the Gainesville Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Gainesville, Georgia, is conveniently located just an hour north of Atlanta at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. This location is perfect because in an hour or less, one could be taking in a show at the Fox Theater in Atlanta or watching a sunset atop a north Georgia mountain.”

Amy Boyd, M.D., is a provider at The Allergy, Asthma and Sinus Center in Gainesville. She is originally from Gainesville and is married to a local pediatrician, who she met in residency. Boyd majored in history and minored in Spanish and music as an undergraduate. She then earned a master’s in piano performance before pursuing medicine.

Previously, Boyd and her husband lived in Alabama but decided to move to Gainesville to be close to family.

Karin Dillard, M.D., is an OB/Gyn and a founding member of Longstreet Clinic. She has lived in Gainesville for the last 30 years. Dillard became a physician because she always loved providing care. “I have always had a servant’s heart. It started with caring for animals as a child,” she says. While attending medical school, she met her husband.

With a population of just over 42,000, an average of 216 days of sunshine and just 55 miles north of Atlanta, Gainesville is an ideal location to call home.

“Gainesville is so charming,” Dillard says. “It’s at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and we’re surrounded by Lake Lanier, where all the little fingers of the lake dart in and out of Gainesville. We are so close to Athens and Atlanta, where I can go to the Fox Theater, concerts or wonderful Michelin restaurants, or I can hike the Appalachian trail. It’s lovely!”

From woodland trails at Elachee Nature Science Center to amazing floral and fauna at the Atlanta Botanical Garden Gainesville, Gainesville has quite a trail mix happening. “We live pretty close to the mountains, so a lot of people enjoy hiking, mountain biking, those sorts of activities as we do have a lot of state parks,” says Boyd.

Gainesville Square is the heart of the community downtown and offers over a dozen unique dining locations, boutique shopping and entertainment events.

There are many professional opportunities in Gainesville as well.

Allergy, Asthma & Sinus Center (AASC) has approximately 39 locations in three other states (Tennessee, Louisiana and Kentucky) besides Georgia. There are 29 physicians and 46 nurse practitioners and physician assistants systemwide. “I have wonderful patients and coworkers,” Boyd says. “It makes it fun to go to work.”

Longstreet Clinic is a primary care and multispecialty medical group owned and managed by physicians. There are more than 200 providers across 20 specialties and10 locations. The largest campus is in Gainesville, where specialties include internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, adult and pediatric inpatient medicine, general surgery, oncology, hematology, physiatry, orthopedics, sports medicine, endocrinology, neonatology, perinatology, interventional pain management, neurosurgery, vascular surgery, colorectal surgery, bariatric surgery and medical weight loss.

Bangor, Maine

FAMILIES WILL WANT TO explore all the great attractions in Bangor, Maine. One of the most notable is the 31- foot statue of folkloric lumberjack Paul Bunyan in Bangor’s Bass Park. A day of family fun can be had at the Maine Discovery Museum, where families can explore via hands-on interactive exhibits. Close by is Urban Air Trampoline and Adventure Park and Messology Maine, an art center.

Families who like to adventure in the great outdoors will enjoy hiking on trails such as Bangor City Forest, a large recreation area. The park features close to 10 miles of hiking, cycling and cross-country skiing trails.

“What we really love about the Bangor area is that it has the aspects of what we were looking for in a place to live of being family friendly, access to the outdoors and lots of different activities,” says Daniel Hetherman, M.D., a surgeon at Northern Light Health. “It also has bars, restaurants and fun things to do.”

Originally from Massachusetts, Hetherman and his wife both attended college in Maine, where they met. Hetherman returned to Massachusetts to attend med school. When the opportunity to return to Maine came up, he and his wife couldn’t pass it up.

Northern Light Health is an integrated health care system that provides care to people from Portland to Presque Isle and from Blue Hill to Greenville. There are 10 member hospitals with 987 licensed beds, a single physician- led medical group, eight nursing homes, 37 primary care locations and more than 10,000 employees.

“Northern Light Health offers a very supportive practice and stresses the importance of engaging with our community,” Hetherman says. “In addition, Northern Light Health offers a great work/life balance. For example, in some practices, a physician may only work a four-day workweek versus five. This allows the physician and family to get the most out of what Maine has to offer.”

Lindsay Hamilton is system director of provider recruitment for Northern Light Health and grew up in the Bangor area. “Northern Light Health is very patient focused in everything we do,” she says. “Our strategies are all about patient experience. Northern Light Health is very collaborative. Physicians are at the table when decisions are made that ultimately impact people. …In addition, when we are looking at recruitment, Northern Light Health is really invested in professional development, in growing our own and providing all types of education within our company.” •