With Chris, 2025. Trying to get a nice picture before I deployed.
Last day as active duty, June 2023
That decision changed everything. The two connected immediately, began dating and eventually married during her third year of medical school. Not long after, they were expecting their first child.
At the time, she thought she wanted to pursue emergency medicine. The fast pace and unpredictability appealed to her. But as her life shifted, so did her priorities.
“ All of a sudden, I didn’ t have a theoretical family – I was cooking an actual baby,” she said.“ I wanted something more stable.”
Late in her fourth year, she pivoted to family medicine.
“ I jived with the people,” she says.“ And I liked that family medicine can do so many things.”
Her training took her to a combined military-civilian residency program outside St. Louis, an experience that would shape her into the kind of physician she is today. Unlike some military-only programs, her residency exposed her to a wide range of patients and conditions. From urban trauma cases to rural farming accidents, the diversity was intense.
“ We’ d have someone involved in a drive-by next to someone who fell in a thresher,” she recalled.
As part of an unopposed program, residents took on significant responsibility.
“ We ran the OB deck. We ran the inpatient floor. There were no other residents to compete with. You just … did it.”
That hands-on experience proved invaluable when she was later stationed in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a small, isolated base where she often served as the primary provider for a wide range of needs.
North Dakota with Chris, Henry and Ada.
“ I got very comfortable doing tons of procedures, psych, derm, women’ s health, you name it. Because I was it,” she said.“ That serves me well now.”
In 2020, she prepared for deployment to Afghanistan. What followed was a bureaucratic tangle that underscores the unpredictability of military life.
After five weeks in quarantine in California, her orders were quietly canceled, but no one told her.
“ I got on the plane and flew across the world,” she says.“ I landed in Qatar … and no one called my name.”
She and her team were left in limbo – no orders, no assignment, no clear direction.
“ If you don’ t have orders, nobody owns you,” she explained.“ Nobody is paying for you.”
She spent a month there, working shifts in what she describes as a“ 24-hour urgent care,” before eventually being sent back to North Dakota.
Meanwhile, her husband had relocated with their young children under the assumption she’ d be gone for months.
“ Chris moved our whole life,” she said.“ Got the kids in preschool, got a job … and then I came back early.”
It’ s a story she tells with humor now, but it reflects the resilience and adaptability that define both her career and her family life.
In 2023, she left the Air Force and returned to Kentucky with her( continued on page 36)
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