This alumna never left
C
ara Prier spent two years at the spend on medicine. I need to give them both the best
Daytona Beach Regional Campus, medical care.”
Her medical outreach trips to Haiti have given her
did her residency training at Mayo
valuable perspective.
Clinic in nearby Jacksonville and
now is practicing at St. Vincent’s Hospital, also “It’s not until you go over to an entirely different
in Jacksonville. As a chief resident at Mayo, as a country that you REALLY see what poor is and what
woman of color in a profession striving for diversity, underserved is,” she said. “We talk about not being
as someone who probably could have written her able to afford your cable bill here, but try not even
own ticket, why did she stay in Jacksonville and having a house. Or not even clean water to drink.”
Prier looks forward to joining the College of
choose a hospital that specializes in caring for
Medicine faculty. She’s already teaching her patients.
patients living in poverty?
“I don’t like the concept of just coming in and
She loves St. Vincent’s mission to serve the
underserved, which echoes the College of saying, ‘OK, we’re putting you on this medicine. Bye.’
Medicine’s. Also, her husband is from Jacksonville. I want them to know why. So we sit and we talk and
It’s where they’re raising their 2-year-old. For her, it’s we teach. I have my little ‘love packets’ that I give
putting the “community” in community medicine.
Cara Prier
“I chose Mayo for residency because I wanted
out for lots of common things. For my hypertensive
patients, diabetic, pre-diabetic, people with low
to stay in Florida and I wanted a rigorous program,” said Prier (M.D., Vitamin D, people with high cholesterol, I’ve accumulated all these
’11). “I felt like I would learn a lot. And I wanted exposure to multiple different reading materials.”
subspecialties.”
She liked them all, and she liked seeing the same patients routinely. So
now she’s practicing the type of internal medicine known as primary care.
“St. Vincent’s is a good match, because I felt like they were going to
give me a lot of exposure to patients and a lot of opportunity to sit and
talk with them,” she said. “I don’t have to run in and out of offices in 10
minutes. I can spend a good 30 minutes talking.
“Their dedication to serving the poor was also very good. You see mainly
She treasures the physicians who were her mentors in Years 3 and 4. One
in particular pushed her to always think several steps ahead: What tests
should you order? Why are you ordering that one? What are you going to do if it
comes back abnormal? Do you even need to order it? Is there a cheaper test you
could do? What’s best for your patient?
Similarly, she said, in choosing a specialty, a practice and a community,
young physicians need to ask: What’s best for my life?
“I’m adamant about ‘You work at work; at home, you’re at home.’ So
when I’m home, I am mom. I am wife. It’s a very clear separation. There
both. On any given day, I might see one person who is a highly successful are a lot of things to balance as a female physician. Make sure that you
businessperson, and then see somebody who doesn’t even have $20 to choose the right job for what your values are.”
insured people at Mayo. I thought it was important to be able to do
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