About Us

Dr. Allen and Dr. Downing met during their Family Medicine Residency in Hendersonville, NC where they identified common interests in developing an innovative model for primary care. They began the process of creating their Direct Primary Care practice, New River Family Wellness, in 2018 and have been business partners ever since. Dr. Allen and Nurse Brandi met in college at East Carolina University and have been married since 2010. Nurse Brandi and Nurse Brittany are fraternal twins and love working together. We all look forward to putting down roots in Ashe County and integrating into our community in ways that truly allow us to provide hometown, modern medicine. Read more about each of our doctors and staff below.

Caitlin M. Downing, MD

Family medicine has always been my path. As the daughter of a family physician in a small Connecticut town, family medicine shaped my perception of what it means to be a doctor. In Southbury, everyone knows one other, and a trip to the grocery store easily becomes a social occasion. Therefore, I grew up with a sense of my Mom as the "town doc." As a kid, I spent the afternoons and summers at her practice and saw how impactful a community physician’s deep and lasting patient relationships can be. I knew I was destined for family medicine.

I attended an all-girls high school where I became passionate about music and the outdoors. Afterwards, I took a year off to spend 3 months living in the backcountry of the Rocky Mountains with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and traveled to east Africa where I climbed Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro. College brought me back to the Rocky Mountains, where I attended Colorado College and obtained my bachelor’s degree in music. I went home to CT for medical school at the University of Connecticut, where I cultivated a deep commitment to primary care. At UConn, I was a student of the Urban Service Track.

At its core, family medicine is a holistic, humanistic art, and there are few things it does not encompass. Family physicians provide comprehensive, patient-centered care, and they do so in the context of each patient’s psychosocial and socioeconomic realities. My residency in Hendersonville stood out to me because of its emphasis on training physicians who are attentive to this crucial aspect of healthcare. In our fragmented healthcare system pushing towards a patient-centered, outcomes-focused model, it’s clear we need passionate and invested physicians who can adapt to the needs of whatever community they are serving. I chose the Hendersonville program because I believed it would make me into that type of physician. Now looking back, I can say it certainly provided me with those skills and I couldn’t be happier with my time in North Carolina.

I have been thrilled with my new life in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Western NC’s farmer’s markets, art expos, live music, cultural diversity, microbreweries, farm-to-table scene, and world-class outdoor recreation has enabled me to nurture my hobbies of gardening, cooking, home brewing, craft & DIY projects, and camping. This is a truly wonderful place to live, and I’m excited to put down roots in Ashe County!

D. Landon Allen, MD, MPH, MBA, FAAFP

Growing up, I always wanted to be a doctor. In fact, there was never a time when that wasn’t my goal. My ultimate dream of becoming the best small town physician I could be served as a beacon guiding my academic career. While I was an undergraduate student at East Carolina University, I earned degrees in biology and chemistry so that I would have a strong foundation in the basic sciences. I went to business school so that I could lead my future practice into an era of improved efficiency in a time when healthcare expenses can be a significant burden. During medical school, I saw firsthand what a lack of access to healthcare looked like, both in rural eastern North Carolina as the director of our medical school’s student-run free clinic, and at the international level through my volunteer work. I became keenly aware of the growing problem it presents. I took a year during medical school to complete a master’s degree in public health so that I could better understand the web of determinants affecting health outcomes in under-served regions, directing the majority of my research and outreach toward migrants and farm workers. During my family medicine residency in Hendersonville, I put those skills to use working in a Federally Qualified Health Center focused on meeting the needs of a rural, under-served population.

Everything I have done, I did in preparation of becoming the best small town, full-scope physician I could be: one who serves my patients compassionately, who works toward eliminating health disparities, and who helps lead others in the fight for better access, decreased costs, and improved quality of care. With these goals in mind, I hoped to find a community that could help support me on the path to becoming a small town doc; I believe I have found just such a community in Ashe County.

My wife and I are extremely happy to be a part of such a welcoming community in our home state. The people of the high country have been incredibly supportive and one could not ask for more compassionate and helpful neighbors. The great medical need that exists in rural Western North Carolina and rural North Carolina in general makes working in Ashe County both professionally challenging and highly rewarding. I look forward to making a positive difference in the lives of my patients and the broader healthcare system in the region.

Brandi Allen, RN, BSN

I grew up in McLeansville, a small town in Guilford County North Carolina. I loved living in a small, rural community because it emphasized all those values I hold dear: family, self-sufficiency, resiliency, friendliness, and faith. As a child, I spent weekends traveling to the High Country exploring the Blue Ridge Parkway, picking Christmas trees each December, and hiking through the beautiful colors of fall in the Appalachian Mountains. I’ve always dreamed of raising a family in a community that exemplifies those values that I hold dear and is as beautiful as all those trips to Western North Carolina, and Landon and I have certainly found that in Ashe County.

I’ve always had a passion for serving others and an interest in nursing, so when I went to college at East Carolina University with my twin sister, we enrolled in their nationally ranked nursing program. There we were trained in a broad variety of nursing skills promoting high-quality, wholistic, and compassionate patient care. After I graduated, I spent time working in a large hospital on a surgical floor, in a large multi-provider family medicine clinic, as a school health nurse, and even some as a case manager. Now as we move to West Jefferson, I’m excited to be working at New River Family Wellness where I’ll be able to truly get to know our patients, caring for a variety of patients throughout their lifespan in a meaningful way.