I consider myself a hometown girl from Gadsden, Alabama. I was born and raised in nearby Albertville, but have worked in Gadsden since 2012 and lived here since 2017. I love our community and our southern culture.
I felt called to be a physician when I was 17-years old and caring for my 8-years old brother when he had the flu. However, my journey was far from linear. At age 19, medical school seemed too daunting and I changed my major to nursing. I graduated with my BSN from Jacksonville State University in 2012 and worked as an RN in the Gadsden Regional Medical Center Emergency Department until 2014 when I became a nurse practitioner.
I accepted a nurse practitioner position with Etowah Pulmonary Associates working in the Gadsden Regional Medical Center ICUs where Dr. Kaleem modeled excellent patient care by combining outstanding knowledge with genuine compassion for all. I had an insatiable desire to understand the mechanisms, physiology, the “whys”, and the minute details of every disease and treatment. After Dr. Kaleem’s encouragement to do so, I chose to pursue medical school once again. I was young, single, and without kids and I felt more prepared than ever. I still needed to take several undergraduate prerequisite classes, and it felt much like starting over. It was a humbling process. In fact, my new classmates were the age of my little brother who helped me realize my calling eight years prior.
My husband, Dalton, and I got engaged in 2017, just after I was accepted to the University of Alabama – Birmingham Rural Medical Scholars Program for medical school. Dalton came with the blessing of the sweetest, cutest red-headed daughter, named Charlotte.
We got married the year before I was to matriculate into medical school, but God had another detour. I delayed my matriculation for one year to have our son, John Luke in October 2018. I started medical school in the fall of 2019 with a 9-month-old baby and an hour-long commute from Gadsden to Birmingham. During my 4th year of medical school I had another, more complicated pregnancy. Our daughter, Andie, was delivered prematurely at 31-weeks in November 2022. After a scary several months, she is healthy and doing well ever since.
My personal experiences with healthcare shaped my desire to become a Family Medicine physician. I love the continuity, broad spectrum of diagnoses and treatments, and the wide range of patients from children, to pregnancies, to the elderly. In medical school when I rotated at Gadsden Regional Medical Center with the Family Medicine Residency Program, I was amazed when we transitioned from rounding on critically ill patients to healthy newborns in the nursery. It is unlike any other field of medicine in the most refreshing way.
When I found myself at the end of my medical school journey and beginning residency, life looked very different from when I started. Gadsden looked different as well, because I never would have dreamed of being able to complete residency here. It felt like coming home. I know God saw me through every step of the long journey. Even though it was difficult, He guided my path and His faithfulness helped me succeed and brought me right back to the city in which I started. I would not have survived without unending support from my husband and our families, which seems unique to the southern culture I love so much.
I am passionate about bringing quality healthcare to our community and excited to care for the people in and around Gadsden for many years to come.