At Comprehensive Medical Fitness (624 SE L Street), owner and Family Nurse Practitioner Brett Williams has a life-long passion for health and fitness.
“As a freshman in high school, I was overweight and suffered low self-esteem,” Brett said. “I was introduced to weightlifting by my older brother and was given the opportunity to start training in the high school weight room by a kind middle school teacher. He agreed to open and chaperone the gym to any student who desired to spend an hour after school training. This started a lifetime love of fitness. Thirty-two years later, I have never gone longer than seven days without training and have had the opportunity to train for bodybuilding, powerlifting, marathons and triathlons. Regular physical activity is engrained in my very being and I am more than happy to share that passion with anyone who is interested to join in.”
Brett grew up in Eastern Oregon and completed his nursing degree at SOU in Ashland in 2000. He left for five years to further advance his training and completion of student loan payback obligations, then returned. “This is my home and I don’t intend to leave,” he said.
During his training as a Family Nurse Practitioner, Brett quickly learned the challenge of promoting healthy lifestyle changes and disease prevention strategies while working in a busy family practice.
“We were taught to teach our patients healthy eating and the importance of regular exercise, all within the confines of a 15-minute office visit … simple right?” he said. “I found that the vast majority of my patients were unsuccessful at achieving our recommendations because those things are hard to do. I thought, if only I could refer my patients to a clinic that specialized in such services, they might have a chance at achieving those goals. Unfortunately, no such clinic existed.”
The idea stayed with Brett for several years and eventually led him to pursue Doctoral Studies at John Hopkins University.
“While there, I further worked on the development of the clinic model,” he said. “In the interim, I began to spend time working as a nurse practitioner in Rehabilitation and Internal Medicine settings, working closely with Physical and Occupational therapists as we collectively would bring back to life our patient’s functional abilities through the implementation of physical and medical therapies. Whether they were recovering from stroke, hip fractures, back surgeries etc., I became skilled in the process of maximizing medical therapies while working closely with and assisting my colleagues in physical rehabilitation therapies.”
Throughout that time, he never let go of the dream of opening his own clinic that specialized in combining medical and fitness science for the general public, such as those who were struggling to achieve sustainable weight loss, those who were newly diagnosed as diabetics and looking for options to minimize medications, those who suffered the effects of aging and poor mobility, and those who suffered chronic pain and looking ways to improve their physical functioning.
Brett finally opened his clinic in May 2025. “As our three daughters grew and went off to college, I found I finally had the time I could commit to pursuing my dream,” he said. “I completed my training in Corrective Exercise Science and Personal Training and am excited to start seeing patients.”
Comprehensive Medical Fitness is a clinic that exists to offer professional fitness and medical services aimed at achieving a healthier lifestyle.
“Much like going to any other specialist such as a cardiologist, our specialty is to get you feeling and moving better while achieving your functional goals,” Brett said. “In addition to these specialty services, we also offer a fully stocked 24-hour gym open to the public. Being a gym owner, it has been quite fun to take my 32 years of gym experience and build the ‘perfect gym,’ complete with posters, chalk and the right kind of music to really get into the spirit of training.”
What makes this clinic unique is that they aim to address every possible barrier. “That might mean adjusting some of your medications, adding hormone replacement, using advanced weight loss medications, working within restrictive dietary concerns, creating training programs that take into account your chronic back pain, or any other host of barriers that are keeping you from becoming more active and healthier,” Brett said. “We are not a ‘one size fits all’ program. You will not show up and do the same exercises as the person next to you, as none of us are the same. Your medication, nutrition and exercise program will be tailored to you, based on your goals, needs and barriers, and based on your unique story. We meet you where you are, help you grow, and aim to help push you to a better and healthier way of life.”
For more info, call 541-761-5200. You can also see them at Comprehensivemedicalfitness.com and on Facebook.
