Osteopathic fellowship honors P.I. doctor Family physician helped establish UNE program

Dr. William Bergen, a Presque Isle family physician, has been named a Fellow of the American College of Osteopathic Family Practice. The honorary award was made last week at the annual meeting of the Maine Osteopathic Association in South Portland.

Bergen, 75, has practiced in Maine since 1961 and ran a health clinic in Kennebunk for 30 years. In 1991, he joined the United States Public Health Service. With his wife and daughter, Bergen lived for five years in an Eskimo village in Alaska, 400 miles from the nearest public road, before returning to Maine in 1996.

The family settled in Presque Isle and Bergen practiced for several years at a clinic in Fort Fairfield. In 1998, he was among the founding members of the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford, where he taught classes for several years without pay, to help establish the program.

In March 2007, Bergen was badly injured in a head-on traffic collision. He now practices two days a week at Horizon Health Center in Mars Hill.

“I tried retirement, but it wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” he said in a telephone interview Monday.

Bergen, an aspiring anthropologist, has written a book about his experience in Alaska. Titled, “We Took to the Tundra,” it is expected to be published soon.