Rites of Passage Wilderness Programs

Dr. Tanya M. Wilke, MD is a board certified family physician specializing in Family Medicine. She is our Medical Director here at Rites of Passage NW Wilderness Therapy and Rites of Passage Ranch. She is currently licensed to practice medicine in Washington State. She is affiliated with St Elizabeth Regional Medical Center, St. Francis Hospital, and St. Joseph Medical Center. Her professional memberships include the American Medical Association (AMA), The American Academy of Family Physicians, Washington Academy of Family Physicians, King County Medical Society. Dr. Tanya M. Wilke graduated from the Louisiana State University School of Medicine at New Orleans in 2006. She completed her residency at Family Medicine at Southwest Washington Medical Center (SWMC). She has been the clinical preceptor for both the University of Washington (UW) and Seattle University Nurse Practitioner programs and has been on the Medical Executive Committee for St Elizabeth Hospital since 2012. Her previous work was at Franciscan Medical Clinic in Enumclaw before going into private practice: Tanya Wilke Family Medicine LLC. Tanya loves the outdoors. By early spring, you will never see her white car without her red and yellow kayak attached to the top! Whenever she has a spare moment you will find her paddling in the ocean, on lakes or down rivers. This coming summer, Tanya has joined a team of us to summit Mt. Rainier.

Kris has been working in the mental health field for 11 years. Her experience ranges from: working with children and adolescents in schools providing individual and group mental health counseling, providing suicide assessments for the local school district, working collaboratively with Children's Protective Services (CPS) as a Family Preservation therapist, providing mental health first aid for natural disasters, doing individual, group and family wilderness therapy for Rites of Passage and most recently, providing mental health assessments in crisis services within the emergency department at St. Peters Providence Hospital, Olympia WA. She has worked with people of all ages, from many walks of life and with many different mental health conditions. Her favorite way to spend free time is with her children and in the outdoors. She would always prefer to be walking, hiking, camping, rock climbing, swimming in lakes or the ocean, kayaking, canoeing, skiing or just sitting outdoors. She has faithfully been an outdoor enthusiast and has practiced yoga for the past 18 years. She is a passionate believer in wilderness therapy because she has seen firsthand its positive impact on people and how it changes lives.