Genesis Health and Performance: A God-Driven Story
Written by Stephanie Gordon
For Dr. Kenneth “Kam” Mueller, ’11, his philosophy is really quite simple: God created the human body beautifully and wonderfully, as it says in the Bible. A former football athlete at the College, he is honored to serve as the medical director and head team physician for his alma mater. Also passionate about musculoskeletal medicine, Kam recently opened Genesis Health and Performance in Hillsdale to offer comprehensive care for the community he loves. He said the road to opening his own practice is a God-driven story.
According to Kam, his career began on the conventional medicine path as an internal medicine specialist, but his philosophy changed during his specialty training in osteopathic manipulation. Studying the foundational principles of osteopathic medicine, and viewing them through the lens of scripture, caused him to change his approach. Now, Kam seeks to treat illness and disease naturally as he emphasizes the importance of lifestyle choices, which greatly influence one’s immune system and overall health.
After graduating from Hillsdale with a biology major and biochemistry minor, Kam attended West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg, West Virginia. There, he received his doctorate in osteopathic medicine. He went on to specialize in internal medicine, and spent a year studying osteopathic neuromusculoskeletal manipulative medicine, better known as ONMM. Kam and his wife, Kate, ’10, didn’t know if they wanted to leave West Virginia, but several doors were closing for their family.
“My ultimate dream has been to work with a small Division I or II college as the head team doctor and then have a practice where I specialize in sports medicine and primary care on my own,” said Kam.
And Kam did just that. He returned to the College in April 2020 as the new medical director and head team physician. In October 2021, Kam opened Genesis Health and Performance. He provides adult primary care, acute care for all ages, orthopedic and musculoskeletal medicine, and hands-on manipulation.
“I’m a hybrid doctor with a natural approach, but I also have a conventional approach, and I use both of these in unison to help treat the full person and not just the symptoms,” Kam added.
“The goal of my practice is to keep people from needing to go to the hospital, needing to get surgery, and needing to utilize their insurance so that way they can stay healthy.”
Genesis Health and Performance doesn’t accept insurance, so one does not need a referral to become a patient. One simply has to call the clinic or go online to schedule an appointment.
“There were people coming to me asking for ways not to deal with their insurance companies,” said Kam. “My goal was not to have to rely on the government in order to practice the way I wanted to practice.”
In lieu of accepting insurance, Kam offers monthly memberships in six-month increments for his patients. With the membership, the patient has 24/7 access to Kam.
“You’ll be able to call me anytime,” he said. “I can get you in at the clinic, or I can come visit you at your home, or we can do a virtual appointment, and take care of whatever we need to at that time.”
Kam claims that his Hillsdale experience has helped shape the way he models his practice, from not accepting insurance to sharing similar conservative values. His most influential class at Hillsdale was anatomy and physiology taught by Dr. Daniel York.
“In A&P, I was able to learn from an actual cadaver, which is hard to get at a small school,” said Kam. “This class greatly improved my knowledge so that when I went to medical school, I was already ahead of a few of my classmates when we studied anatomy.”
Kam said being back in the Hillsdale community is like coming home.
“We’ve lived in a lot of different areas, and we never quite felt settled, even though we were in those places for several years,” he said. “When we returned to Hillsdale, we felt like we were back where we belonged.”
Ultimately, Kam believes that we were made in God’s image and we have all the tools inside our own bodies to fight diseases and issues. His faith helps lead his practice.
“My philosophy isn’t that disease comes into our body, but something happens in our bodies to allow disease to come in,” Kam concluded. “My goal to approach patient care is to find the root cause of what’s going on with the person, treat that issue, and allow their body to go back to its normal functioning state.”
Stephanie Gordon, a lifelong Hillsdale native, is the Managing Editor of the Student Stories Blog. She is married to chiropractor, Dr. Matt Gordon, and has three children – Eloise, Flora, and Jack. When she has a spare moment, she enjoys paleo baking, floating on Baw Beese Lake, and breaking a sweat at the gym.
Published in January 2022