The MedCenter Team

William Meller, MD

Medical Director, State Street Office

William Meller has been working at the MedCenters of Santa Barbara since their founding in 1983. He is a board certified Internist who enjoys the variety of medical practice that Urgent Care and family medicine offer. He came to Santa Barbara in 1967 and graduated from UCSB in 1977. After receiving his MD degree from Georgetown University he trained at Cottage Hospital. During his residency he saw the need for an alternative to the long waits and high costs of an emergency room visit. This led to the opening of the first MedCenter, one of the earliest Urgent Care Centers in the country. Because of patient demand the practice quickly evolved into a family practice as well. His interest in anthropology led to an invitation to teach Evolutionary Medicine at UCSB in the College of Creative Studies. Evolutionary medicine is the study of the conditions to which humans adapted over millions of years during the Stone Age and early human history. This give us a better understanding of what is healthy for us to eat, how we work, play and sleep best, as well as how our minds work in happiness and under stress. He has integrated many of these insights into current medical practice, helping his patients to lead happier, healthier lives often with less medicine.

Blanca Fernandez-Kline, MD

Milpas Street and Fairview Avenue Offices

Blanca Fernandez went to medical school at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She completed her Family Medicine internship and residency at Sparrow Hospital/Michigan State University in 2003. She then spent 5 years working at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas until she returned home in 2008 to Southern California so she and her family could be closer to their parents and families. Dr. Fernandez has been married since 1996 and she is a proud mom to 3 healthy, happy sons. When not working she is a busy soccer/swim mom who enjoys reading, walking, hiking and photography (mostly of her 3 active children). Dr. Fernandez is fluent in Spanish.

R. L. Huffard, MD

Milpas Street Office

R. Lansing Huffard (Lans) went to the University of Miami Medical School in Florida and did his Residency at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and speaks Spanish and Portuguese. He has lived in the Santa Barbara area and has practiced medicine with The MedCenter for more than 30 years. He enjoys hiking and biking in the great outdoors in his free time.

Alan Wexlar, MD

State Street Office

Born and raised in Philadelphia and trained at Hahnemann Medical College Class of 1976, now part of Drexel University. I came to Santa Barbara for Residency in 1976 at the old S.B. County Hospital, and stayed to work and raise a family. I practiced as an ER physician for the next 8 years. I have been working as an Urgent Care physician in Santa Barbara since 1984, and joined The MedCenter in 2002.

Mark Wienpahl, MD

Mark Wienpahl, MD

Milpas Street, State Street, and Fairview Avenue Offices

Born and raised here in Santa Barbara, Mark Wienpahl MD graduated from S.B. High, Pomona College, and the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson in 1979. He completed residency and was Board Certified in Family Medicine in Colorado in 1982. Dr Wienpahl moved directly to a small, rural town in southern CO, Pagosa Springs, and assumed operation of a community supported clinic, in which he was the sole practitioner, sharing call with two other family doctors in another clinic. The nearest hospital was 60 miles distant. After 28 years of Family Practice there, he relocated to Santa Barbara for family and personal reasons after the Jesusita fire ravaged the family property here. His wife, August Vanderbeek practices psychology and advocates for the Deaf and hard of hearing locally. He has two grown children in CO, and a step-daughter in college here. Dr. Wienpahl strives to help his patients realize the treatment options that best suit their individual medical needs. He regards the patient and practitioner as teammates in planning the medical strategy. He enjoys folks of all ages, has had years of experience, and just regrets that he doesn't speak Spanish much at all.