Roger Miller

Roger D. Miller, Ph.D. - Class of 1958

2024 Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame Inductee

Career Achievements 

Dr. Roger Miller grew up on a dairy farm in Burnips, Michigan, where he and his twin sister attended the one-room country school of Indian Trails through the 6th grade. Due to overcrowded conditions, they transferred to Hudsonville Public Schools to complete the 7th grade, eventually graduating among a class of seventy-eight students from Hudsonville High School in 1958.  

Dr. Miller received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Wheaton College. He was encouraged to apply to medical school by his biology professor and earned his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Michigan in 1966. He finished an internship and a two-year residency in the Internal Medicine Residency program at Butterworth Hospital (now Corewell Health Grand Rapids Butterworth). He then accepted a two-year Cardiology Fellowship at Cleveland Clinic.  

In 1971, Dr. Miller entered the United States Air Force in Biloxi, Mississippi during the Vietnam War. He served two years in the Air Force as a major and spent many months treating Air Force airmen wounded in combat.  

After discharge from the Air Force, Dr. Miller moved his family back to Grand Rapids and began a private practice with coverage at Butterworth, Blodget and Metropolitan hospitals (now Corewell Health), and teaching at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. In 1980, Dr. Miller founded West Michigan Heart. He received training on the placement of pacemakers and stents, which were new procedures at that time. Since then, West Michigan Heart patients have received these state-of-the-art procedures locally. He also helped to navigate the first heart transplant in West Michigan.

Dr. Miller and his wife Donna (Rynbrandt), a 1960 graduate of Hudsonville High School, worked foreign missions with Christian Medical and Dental, traveling to Guatemala over the years for 27 trips. Dr. Miller now enjoys flower gardening and spending time with his nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.