DR. WHO Ryan Fields, MD
Dr. Fields on a trip to Paris.
When Dr. Ryan Fields reflects on her journey into medicine, she can trace the spark back to childhood, long before she knew what“ internal medicine” meant, or what it would take to become a physician.“ I remember being a young child and saying I wanted to be a‘ baby doctor,’” she recalled with a laugh.“ I don’ t know where it came from, but I remember playing with my baby dolls and Barbies and thinking that was what I wanted to do.”
Coming from the small town of Rockport, Kentucky, and the first in her family to go to medical school, Dr. Fields’ path was not predetermined by legacy, but by an enduring curiosity and an inner voice that kept steering her back toward caring for others.
Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, and her father worked in construction.“ I was an only child for years,” she said,“ but when I went off to college, my parents adopted my brother. There was a big age gap, so it was a big change, but also a wonderful one.”
In high school, her interests briefly veered away from medicine. A strong student with wide-ranging curiosity, she became involved in political science.“ For a minute, I thought I was going to be a lawyer,” she said. But after one semester as a political science major at the University of Kentucky, she realized it wasn’ t the right fit.“ It shifted back to this voice that always told me that I wanted to be a doctor.”
Once she pivoted to pre-med, her world opened in unexpected
ways. She majored in Spanish and participated in global health programs that expanded her understanding of medicine’ s cultural reach.“ I spent a summer in Mexico living with a doctor’ s family and taking medical Spanish,” she said.“ Another year, I joined a medical mission to Australia to learn about their health care system. Those experiences cemented that this was what I wanted to do.”
After graduating from UK, she enrolled at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, where she quickly discovered that academic success came with new demands, familiar to so many entering medical school.“ School had always come naturally to me,” she said.“ Then you get to med school and realize that style of studying doesn’ t work anymore. That first semester was a wake-up call.”
What followed was a period of growth and connection. She built close friendships and support systems that carried her through long nights and countless exams.“ I didn’ t know anyone when I started, but I made some of my best friends in med school, people I still keep in touch with today. It’ s a special bond, because no one else truly understands what that experience is like.”
Like many medical students, she entered her rotations with an open mind and a long list of possibilities. She went into it thinking maybe pediatrics, but determined almost immediately that it wasn’ t for her. She fell in love with surgery, and for a bit, thought she might pursue OB-GYN. But it was internal medicine – discovered almost at the last minute – that ultimately captured her heart.
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