Dr. Arlo Miller

Arlo grew up in the small town of Grafton, North Dakota, with 5,500 people at its peak. His parents owned small businesses, and as a teenager, Arlo worked in his father’s auto body shop. When his uncle Arnie died of cancer, Arlo started thinking about a career in medicine. After high school, Arlo wanted to try city life, so he enrolled in Augsburg College in Minneapolis to study biology and chemistry. He spent his summers toiling in research labs, where he had the great fortune of working in the lab of the late Dr. Stanley Korsmeyer at Washington University in St. Louis, who was a pioneer in cancer research and provided formative support and mentorship to Arlo. Arlo decided to move east for medical school and spent nine years earning his MD and PhD from Harvard. His PhD work involved laboratory research in a melanoma lab which led him to become interested in dermatology. After medical school, Arlo moved to the opposite coast for an internship at Virginia Mason in Seattle. He met a nurse named Johanna, fell in love, and somehow convinced her to move to Minnesota with him for his residency training at Mayo Clinic, where the average January temperature is about 10 degrees with a foot of snow covering the ground. They soon married, and had their first daughter the following year. During his residency, he continued his melanoma research, but ultimately decided to focus exclusively on patient care. Residents in dermatology at Mayo see over 10,000 patients during their 3 years of training. The majority of patients have traveled more than 100 miles for a second, third, or fourth opinion, making it a truly exceptional training environment. And despite it being a large program with over 50 residents and staff, exceptional friendships were formed. After his residency, Arlo and Johanna moved back to Washington to be closer to Johanna’s family, and are welcoming their second daughter. Arlo is thrilled to be setting down roots in a place that continually inspires him with its natural beauty.