Nicole Hemkes

Dr. Nicole Hemkes, born and raised in Orlando, FL, graduated with distinction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BS in Biology and a minor in Chemistry in 2002. She earned her MD from the University of South Florida in Tampa in 2006 and completed a Family Medicine residency at Wake Forest University in Winston‑Salem, NC in 2009. Over her first ten years of practice she worked in a wide variety of settings—including emergency departments, inpatient hospitalist roles, and traditional outpatient family medicine clinics—serving diverse populations in inner‑city Chicago and remote rural Alaska. This breadth of experience, she says, sharpened her clinical skills and deepened her empathy for patients.

After a decade as an employed physician, Dr. Hemkes embraced Direct Primary Care (DPC) to restore the physician‑patient relationship. She founded Advocate MD in 2019, a membership‑based practice that prioritizes ample appointment time, same‑day access, and preventive care without the constraints of insurance billing. Dr. Hemkes believes DPC empowers both doctors and patients, allowing her to advocate for each patient’s health as if they were family. She lives in Madison, WI with her two daughters, Margo and Mona, and enjoys running, pilates, gardening, and exploring the state with her family.