There is a new physician at FirstHealth Family Care-Richmond Family Medicine. By the end of October, it may seem that there is yet another.

Actually, it will be the same person – just with a different name.

Kimberley A. Sierra, M.D., who joined Richmond Family Medicine in mid-August, is engaged to be married on Oct. 24. That will account for the difference in names.

“I’ll be Dr. Lingler at the end of October,” she says.

Dr. Sierra and her fiancé, Justin Lingler, share a health care background. He is a medical technologist in the lab at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, but the two have bought a home in Richmond County.

The family association with medicine doesn’t end with Dr. Sierra’s fiancé, however. Her mother is a physician who practices emergency medicine in New Jersey.

“My mother entered medical school when I was 6 years old,” Dr. Sierra says. “She was a podiatrist, but wanted to change to emergency medicine.”

Dr. Sierra herself received an undergraduate degree from LaSalle University in Philadelphia and then a Master’s of Biological Science from MCP Hahnemann University, Drexel University, also in Philadelphia.

She earned her medical degree from Philadelphia’s Temple University School of Medicine at the university’s Western Pennsylvania Hospital clinical campus, and then completed a family practice residency at the Washington Hospital in Washington, Pa.

She is board certified.

A member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Dr. Sierra says her interest in family medicine grew out of an interest in educating patients – not just children, not just adults or seniors, but all patients.

“I had considered many medical specialties, because I enjoy everything,” she says. “The beauty of family medicine is the variety that it provides. It allows me to care for the whole family – from babies to grandparents.”

Away from work, Dr. Sierra enjoys a variety of sports activities, camping, oil painting, boating, water skiing and sewing. During the 2007 and 2008 athletic season, she served as team physician for a varsity football team in Pennsylvania. She also spent three summers as an asthma camp physician for the American Respiratory Alliance’s Camp Huff ‘n’ Puff.

Kimberley A. Sierra, M.D., is now accepting patients at FirstHealth Family Care-Richmond Family Medicine, 921 Long Drive, Suite 101, Rockingham. To make an appointment, call 417-3850.