Brian Arndt, MD

Dr. Arndt is an Associate Professor and has been part of the core teaching faculty in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Family Medicine and Community Health’s family medicine residency training program in Madison, Wisconsin since 2008. He serves as Site Lead of the UW Health Verona Family Medicine Clinic, the program’s largest residency continuity practice where he oversees the care of 13,000 patients. He also provides inpatient hospital care 6-8 weeks per year at the UW Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital. He earned his undergraduate degree (BS) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and worked for both Trane Company and Sub-Zero Group prior to going to medical school at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He completed his family medicine residency with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health.

Dr. Arndt’s broad training in systems gives him the unique ability to help patients navigate the complex healthcare system and its relationship to the broader community. His primary areas of professional interest include understanding EHR factors related to physician burnout and identifying associated solutions, population health and team-based care including non-face-to-face chronic disease management and group visits, practice management, and quality and safety improvement. His engineering background coupled with his training in public health has helped him develop new approaches to preventive health and health promotion along with managing patients with chronic disease and complex social issues. He is a board member and volunteer Development Director for the non-profit Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens, Inc. (MAFPG). Based on his personal and professional interests related to food is medicine, he has developed and strengthened community partnerships between healthcare entities and the local emergency food system. Examples of these partnerships include the food pantry garden at the Verona Clinic (part of the MAFPG network) that grows fresh and culturally appropriate produce for the neighboring Badger Prairie Needs Network (BPNN) food pantry. He is engaged with the ChopChop Family Cooking Club for kids and their families in BPNN’s beautiful commercial kitchen as a way to encourage intake of fresh produce while experiencing modeling of healthy behaviors by local healthcare providers. He co-founded the Prairie Kitchen Cooking Club at BPNN for seniors in the community to engage in social experiences to decrease loneliness among seniors.

Dr. Arndt has been leading group visits since 2005 including the UW Health Verona Clinic’s annual Fitness and Lifestyle Challenge for obese patients with either prediabetes or diabetes. The groups have significant engagement with a local chef, community-based dietician nutritionist, yoga instructor, local fitness coaches, and physicians. Incentives include insurance rebates for active participation and discounts from local grocery stores for healthier food items. To help staff and faculty battle the crisis in healthcare related to burnout, he developed Meal Kits at Work, a meal kit program for healthcare employees in partnership with BPNN, a local chef, local farms and other food suppliers, and a community-based dietician nutritionist. With each of these efforts, he hopes to enhance how patients and healthcare employees practically manage their health with the support of community partners that creates synergy for all involved. To recognize Dr. Arndt for his efforts, in 2020 he received the Aspirational Leader award from the Gold Humanism Honor Society at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. This award signifies that “you have made a significant impact on a future physician by providing an example of compassion, care, and service.”

Dr. Arndt is a true Badger at heart and enjoys spending time with his wife Kimberly, who is also a UW Health physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and their three daughters. When not at home working outside or on a house project, you might find him hunting, fishing, tending to prairies, or cutting brush on the tractor around his family’s 200-acre farm in the Driftless Area in Richland Center, Wisconsin.