Alumni Focus - Bryan ('05) and Kristen (Scislow '05) Budahn

Kristen (Scislow ‘05) and Bryan Budahn (‘05) have had their share of adventures since their time in high school at SCLA. From delivering babies to brewing beer to climbing mountains around the world, the Budahns took their passions and ran with them. Read on for how the pandemic has affected their careers and how they’ve done their best to make the most of every situation.

What is your favorite St. Croix memory?

It’s kind of crazy looking back at St. Croix memories now where we are in life – married to each other. Both of us wouldn’t have ever expected that we’d end up married as we weren’t high school sweethearts!  (And I don’t think either of us would have dated the high school version of the other person!) We were good friends and spent a lot of time together, though – working on crazy projects for physics class, watching movies in Bryan’s parents’ basement after football games and on numerous other Friday nights, hanging out in the hot tub and playing numerous rounds of pool at Kristen’s parents’ house, and managing wrestling together senior year. We stayed in touch a little but not a ton right after high school. We reconnected again when Kristen was in med school and Bryan was coming through Duluth en route to a winter Boundary Waters trip with his best friend from college and they needed a place to crash. We hit it off well, stayed in touch, started making weekly weekend trips between Duluth and Milwaukee where we were each finishing school, and the rest is history. As of this coming September, we’ll have been married 10 years, which is crazy!

Did any specific SCLA teacher or staff make a positive impact on you? 

Mrs. Stob! She made physics and calculus some of our favorite classes! She was such an amazing teacher. For me (Kristen), it was great to have a really positive female role model in the STEM field. She really pushed us to learn, grow in our critical thinking, get creative while learning, and prepared us really well for college math and science classes.

Pastor Huebner also had a really positive impact on both of us through senior religion class and as my soccer coach. He actually officiated our wedding for us in the St. Croix chapel!

Can you tell us about Kristen’s job at Glencoe Clinic?

I practice full spectrum, rural family medicine. I provide prenatal care, deliver babies, perform C-sections, see patients of all ages in clinic (my youngest patient would be the last baby I delivered who as of this writing is approximately 18 hours old, and my oldest is 101 years old!).  I also work as a hospitalist (seeing all the patients who are in the hospital the week I’m doing that), and I see patients in our nursing home. I also do a lot of teaching both back at my residency program and as a clinical preceptor for third year medical students on a longitudinal rotation at our facility as well as occasionally PA/NP students. 

My absolute favorite part of my job is catching babies! I absolutely love caring for moms through their entire pregnancy, delivering their babies, and then watching those babies grow up.  The first kids I delivered here in Glencoe as a practicing doctor are now starting to turn four which is so fun to see them grow and develop.

The pandemic has definitely been crazy! I think I’ve had more people die this year of my practice, both my own patients and as a hospitalist, than I think I’ve had in the entire rest of my training/ practice combined. That’s been really, really hard. But I’ve also seen amazing strength and resiliency in my organization, my coworkers, and my partners. Everyone has really stepped it up to make changes on the fly whether it was moving all our well visits to our satellite clinics, to separate those who were healthy from people who were sick and still be able to provide care, to instituting telehealth visits over the matter of about a week, to getting a drive up COVID test site run out of one of the doctor’s ice fishing houses in the parking lot, to rolling out a vaccine clinic with about three days notice. Across the state our healthcare industry has really worked hard to step up to the battle – which is definitely what fighting this pandemic feels like some days!

I’m a passionate advocate for getting your vaccine and am always willing to answer any questions people have about the vaccine! Also, I’m more than happy to talk to any students who are thinking they may want to become a doctor.

Can you share about Bryan’s job at Enki Brewing?

Bryan works in research and development of new beers at Enki Brewing in Victoria. However, the brewery has essentially shut down because of COVID. No brewing has been happening in the last many months. Because of that, he is currently looking at potentially phasing out of the formal brewing industry and opening his own business. Prior to Enki, Bryan worked at Schram Vineyards in Waconia as a Brewmaster.

What else do you enjoy for fun?

We love to travel! COVID has obviously affected our ability to travel as much as we usually do, but we have been able to sneak in some mountain climbing/skiing adventures out to Colorado and a backpacking trip in the Boundary Waters. We love mountain climbing, rock climbing, skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, camping, and sailing. 

We also love to cook. Pre-COVID, we both were off work on Tuesdays, so we would usually take the day for a “Tuesday adventure” which usually involved rock climbing, a hike, or checking out a new brewery. When most of that shut down, we started doing “Fancy Tuesday” where we cook a multi-course, themed meal. 

We are active at our church, NorthCross in Lakeville, as well. I lead a small group for the seventh-grade girls for NorthCross’s equivalent to confirmation, and Bryan does stuff with tech for church services.