Thomas Cash hails from tiny Scottsboro, Alabama, and he is a small-town guy at heart. He likes to meet new people and say hello to strangers at the grocery store. Though he didn't always want to be a doctor, he admired what it meant to be one back home. The doctors in Scottsboro were community leaders, always making time for people who needed them. Sometimes those people were patients, but often they weren't. One of them offered to mentor Thomas when he was deciding on a career.
"He took time for me even though he was very busy," he remembered, "And he inspired me to want to be like that."
Eventually Thomas decided to follow in the good doctor's footsteps. He attended college at Auburn University and went on to the University of Alabama School of Medicine.
At first he thought he would go back to Scottsboro and practice family medicine. But working with children unexpectedly captured his interest during his third year of medical school.
"The interaction just made me really happy," he said, recalling his first pediatric visit. "I realized that as a pediatrician you get to know the whole family... and I saw the opportunity to build real relationships with my patients that way."
When one of his attending physicians in Huntsville told him about his training experience at UAMS, Dr. Cash decided to look into it. And when he arrived in Little Rock, he realized that he fit right in.
Kerri Daniels has never changed her mind about her career goals. Born and raised in Little Rock, she wanted to be a pediatrician before she was old enough to pronounce the word. But with no other doctors in the family, young Kerri decided to forge her own path. She researched and experimented with anything she could get her hands on, including a dead frog she found in the back yard when she was seven years old.
"She said, 'Where are you going with that?'" laughed Kerri, imitating her mother's horrified reaction. "'You're not using my good knives to cut open a frog!'"
Fortunately, Kerri was not easily discouraged.
With her goal in mind, she graduated from the University of Memphis with a degree in Biology and and returned home to attend medical school at UAMS.
Her pediatrics rotation cemented her decision to work with children. "Looking back, I was always happiest doing pediatrics," she recalled. "No matter how hard I worked, I still loved what I was doing and I was always happy."
Christine Barrett loves animals. As a little girl, she told anyone who would listen about her plans to become a veterinarian. And she followed through on her word, preparing for her career by volunteering at animal clinics and rescue programs through high school and college. Christine wanted to be a vet with the kind of passion that drives people to do extraordinary things. Seemingly impossible things, like wrestling a wild alligator into submission and bringing it to the local zoo.
Everything changed, however, when she went on church mission trip to Africa: a poorly staffed hospital gave 19-year-old Christine the opportunity to take vitals, draw blood, and even deliver babies.
"It turned me on to the human side of things,” she said, recalling how she carried her own bath water and often went without electricity. "That's when I really decided to go into medicine."
She went on to attend medical school at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans.
Though she originally wanted to become an obstetrician, Dr. Barrett chose pediatrics after her OB rotation in medical school.
"I loved catching the babies, but I wanted to stay with the babies," she said emphatically.
She selected the UAMS/ACH residency program based on a month-long away rotation at Arkansas Children's Hospital.
Betsy Martin has always been outgoing and adventurous. She spent her childhood learning to bird hunt, fish, and sail a sailboat on the Alabama River. And as she got older, she longed for the adventure of the city life. She knew she wanted to be a doctor, and Betsy had a dream: through her college years at the University of Alabama, she carefully planned a consuming career as a plastic surgeon. She would work around the clock, she thought, and she surely never wanted a family.
But during her second year of medical school at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, she had a pleasant surprise.
She met her future husband, Rob, and Betsy had a revelation. "I realized I did want kids and I did want a life," she recalls. "I realized, oh, you always wanted to [be a pediatrician]! I wanted something to make me smile while I was working hard, and kids really make me smile."
Now married for seven months, Dr. Martin has had a busy year. She selected her program in March, married in April, moved to Little Rock in June, and started the program in July.
"It helps me remember," she joked. "Anything that happened, that was in 2008."
When she interviewed for residency programs, Betsy understood that she was shopping for a life experience as well as a job. "I wanted a medium-sized program that was high-volume," she said. "But I also wanted to be friends with the other residents outside of work."
A self-confessed people person, Betsy found exactly what she was looking for at UAMS. Remembering the dinner the night before the interview, she said, "I actually had fun. It wasn't labored or uncomfortable."
