When Christian Arnold, a WVU Potomac State College alumnus, joined Potomac Valley Hospital’s Mineral County Rural Health Clinic family medicine practice in Keyser in May, it’s safe to say it was a “Lucky” move.
The Mineral County native said his life has come full circle, as the community and people who shaped his childhood inspired him to want to give back to his hometown. His roots in the area run deep. In fact, those who know him best don’t call him Christian. They simply know him as “Lucky.”
“In the long and what I can see foreseeable future, this is home,” he says. “My wife and I bought seven acres of land when I was in school and when our son was six months old. He is four now, and we finally have our house built outside of town in the country. This is home and where I want to be and where I need to be.”
He returned to Keyser to make a meaningful difference in the region's healthcare.
“We are thrilled to welcome Christian Arnold to Potomac Valley Hospital to join our family medicine team,” said Mark Boucot, president and CEO of Potomac Valley Hospital. “He brings exceptional skill and compassion, and he will make a meaningful impact on the health and well-being of our patients and the broader Keyser community.”
“I enjoy family medicine. I really do,” Arnold says. “I want to eventually work in the area of men’s health. A lot of men don’t get the help they need. I am not the kind of person who pushes medications. I want to push a whole healthy lifestyle. I like to take a life and help turn it around. I want to help someone with not just their physical health but their mental and spiritual health as well.”
In that area, Arnold is not just talking the talk. He speaks from his own life experience. Since re-entering school, he has married and started a family, built a house, completed his degree, and set a path for himself that makes him proud. But he says, there is much more ahead for himself.
“I think there is a stigma behind being a healthy man,” he says. “I am someone who turned his life and his health around, and I am someone who went through a lot to get to where I am, so I know it can be done. We live in an instant gratification society where everyone wants everything microwaved and in a hurry. Your health is not immediate. You have to start with small changes. Men think paying attention to their own health is selfish, but it’s not if you have a wife, a family, and people who love you. You want to be able to take care of them and see your kids grow up. That’s why I did it, and I know other men can too, and that’s why I like being in this profession.”
Admittedly, Arnold will tell you that the “country roads” that took him home were often treacherous and hilly. At 36, he says the path he took to get to his career and to accept a job back in his hometown, where he can be of service to his community, was not an easy one – and he will be the first to admit some of the potholes in that road he dug himself.
“What would I tell my 12-year-old self if I could? I would tell him he is going to go through a lot of hard times and struggles, and I would tell him there will be times when he feels like he’s not going to make it, but if he continues to put God first, He will take him to places that little boy can’t imagine.”
Arnold’s story – as most in the foothills of Appalachia – begins humbly. He says his mother was very young when she gave birth to him, and while she pursued a career in Virginia, Arnold grew up in Keyser, raised mostly by his grandmother and by an uncle.
“I grew up in a trailer on the west side of Keyser,” he said. “I didn’t even know until much later in life that we would be considered poor. I never thought we were poor. But I do remember we never took big vacations like everyone else did.”
Arnold said his uncle became a father figure to him, and his grandmother was his first mentor.
“My uncle made sure growing up that I treated people right, and my grandmother pretty much made sure I was taken care of. She was born in 1926 and from that generation where the mother and grandmother took care of the house and all the people in it.”
And the nickname Lucky? That came from his beloved uncle too.
“He used to rub my head when he walked by me and say it was for luck,” he says. “He did it once and ended up winning some money, and so he continued to do it, and he started calling me Lucky, and it stuck. So, everyone who knows me calls me Lucky because of that.”
Growing up in Keyser gave Arnold a deeper appreciation for community and inspired in him a strong work ethic.
“Nothing has ever been handed to me. I have worked my whole life for everything I have,” he said. “I was taught to show up early, stay late, and make a name for yourself. I was taught if you want something, you have to put in the work.”
In high school, he did best in his Math and Science classes, but when he attended Potomac State College for the first two years of his education, those subjects began to elude him.
“I got into those classes at Potomac State and could not stay awake,” he said. “I remember I met two male nurses, and they told me male nurses were always going to be needed and going into nursing might be a wise economic choice.”
This was before PSC had the four-year nursing program it has today, and so in 2017, Arnold attended Potomac State for two years in a pre-nursing program and received his associate’s degree, preparing him for the Bachelor’s in Nursing program at West Virginia University in Morgantown.
“I really liked going to Potomac State at that time,” he recalls. “It was a great fit for me. I had life under control. PSC helps students in a small-town setting get used to college. A lot of students aren’t prepared to go to a big university right away. Potomac State helps prepare students for that. There’s a comfortability there. Everyone on campus knows who you are.”
Arnold says he has fond memories of the first two years of his formal education from the “college on the hill.”
“I was in the student union a lot,” he said. “I used to tell people my major was Ping Pong. It was great to have just enough freedom, but to feel like an adult for the first time.”
After graduating from Potomac State, Arnold continued his studies at WVU in Morgantown. It was in his senior year studying nursing that the proverbial rug was yanked out from under him.
“In that year, I lost both my grandmother and my uncle. One died in May and the other in November, and I had a really hard time with that,” he said. “I ended up not finishing at WVU. I lost my direction. I took time off and then went back to try again, but still couldn’t keep up and keep it together. I was young. I was 21, and I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything.”
Years removed, Arnold knows that was the impact grief was having on him. The loss of his uncle and his grandmother in the same year was devastating, and he felt depleted.
“At 26, I went back to school,” he said. The five years in between were filled with odd jobs to make ends meet and, admittedly, a battle with depression, anxiety, and a near addiction as he coped with loss.
“I am not afraid to talk about that, and I don’t mind talking about that because that’s who I am, and it’s part of my story,” he said. “It was a faith-based program, and it changed my life. I got out of that and went back to school. If my story and my experience and hearing my life testimony helps just one person, then it was worth it.”
Eventually, Arnold graduated from the family nurse practitioner program at Frostburg State University, where he earned his Master of Science in Nursing. During his clinical rotation experience in primary care, he provided holistic primary care for diverse adult populations, managing chronic disease, wellness exams, and acute complaints, and developed evidence-based care plans. He gained broad clinical experience in emergency medicine, pediatrics, women’s health, and primary care. He received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Western Governors University and his Associate Degree in Nursing from Allegany College of Maryland. He also holds an Associate of Arts degree – his first earned college degree - from Potomac State College.
Arnold previously worked as a registered nurse in the Emergency Department at Potomac Valley Hospital. He has also served at several WVU Medicine facilities, delivering high-acuity emergency and trauma care in multiple Level III–IV trauma centers, including Fairmont Medical Center, United Hospital Center, Berkeley Medical Center, and Uniontown Hospital.
His professional affiliations include the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, American Nurses Association, Allegany College of Maryland Nurses Association, and the National Student Nurses Association.
Outside of vocational aspirations, Arnold also has a few personal life goals.
“My wife is very rooted in the area. She and her family are both from here. After my uncle and my grandmother died, my family dispersed from the area a bit,” he says. “So, my long-term goal is to continue to make this area home. Look at what we have here. We are in a 45-minute radius of some of the best outdoor activities you could take advantage of, and I want to take advantage of that. And I just want to be the best husband, father, and practitioner I can possibly be.”
Before coming to Potomac Valley Hospital, Arnold spent a three-year stint as a travel nurse. That time on the road helped him develop an appreciation for his hometown and for his upbringing.
“I went all over the place and all over the state,” Arnold says. “But I am happy to be back home. There is something pretty great about helping people in your community who have always helped me.”
Potomac Valley Hospital’s Mineral County Rural Health Clinic, located at 100 Pin Oak Lane in Keyser, offers a full range of primary care services for patients of all ages. The practice is committed to providing accessible, high-quality care to the Keyser community and surrounding areas. Arnold continues to accept new patients. To schedule an appointment with him, contact 304-597-3790. For more information on Potomac Valley Hospital, visit WVUMedicine.org/potomac-valley-hospital