Bio
Greetings! I am new to Kaiser in September 2007 after serving in the US Navy for 7 years. I received all my training in the Navy, where they count on you to be able to treat adults and children alike in remote locations, and am grateful for the outstanding education I received. I joined the Navy to serve my country and for the opportunity to travel and learn things that I could not have learned on the outside. In 2001-2002, I had the great honor of serving with the Marines in Okinawa, Japan; during that year I treated active duty Marines in Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Micronesia. In Micronesia I was the lead medical officer for the 5th annual Micronesian games -- a small-scale Olympics for the Micronesian Islands. It's hard to say what my favorite memory is -- appearing in the local paper treating an 18 year old patient who had never seen a doctor in his life; putting an IV in a woman who had had a seizure in the middle of a canoe race (and watching my corpsmen jump in and save her) with everyone watching on the beach; hearing how one of my corpsman had saved a wrestler's life when he got stung by a bee; or the mouse we found living in the quarters we were provided. I've got all sorts of other interesting stories, but back to pediatrics.
I most recently served as a pediatrician in South Carolina for 3 years and was also the department head there -- the military puts you in new and challenging but rewarding positions young. I think maybe I was meant to be a pediatrician, though I didn't always know this. After college, I taught 8th grade earth science and coached field hockey and basketball at a private school in Oklahoma City. The gentleman who helped me get the job told me my personality was perfectly suited for middle school, and I really did love the age. It was a wonderful year of fun -- and growth. My mentor at the school told me that I needed to go to medical school, and then my mentors in medical school told me I had the "sparkle" of a pediatrician. I haven't regretted my choice of specialties.
Within pediatrics, I have a special affection for adolescent medicine and was the asthma champion at my last job, working to improve asthma care throughout the hospital. What I love most, though, is the relationships that I get to form with families and patients. I consider it a great privilege to help care for another person's child.
Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my husband, friends and family. I am also active in triathlon, which I have grown to love after years of team sports, including field hockey, basketball, soccer, tennis and more. My parents told me that even in utero they knew I would be an athlete. I have many other interests, but the most important is my work with the charity organization Our Voices Together, www.ourvoicestogether.org. OVT is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that has built a network of people and organizations responding to terrorism by recognizing the interdependence of our world and our individual power to make a positive difference.
I look forward to seeing you in clinic. |
