For my interview, I interviewed Dr. Amanda O'Kelly, MD who specializes in Internal Medicine-Pediatrics. She works in the Greenville Hospital System Hillcrest Campus in Simpsonville, SC. She works with four other physicians in Heritage Pediatrics and Internal Medicine. I have shadowed Dr. O'Kelly on multiple occasions and have learned so much from her each time I've shadowed her.  

 

1. What is your specialty?

Internal Medicine- Pediatrics

 

2. Please describe your patients

I see a variety of patients from a range of age groups ranging from newborn to older adults. I see all genders and see many patients from different cultures and backgrounds.

 

3. Where did you go to school?

I went to Furman and got my Bachelors of Science in Chemistry.  I got my M.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine- Columbia. I completed my 4 year Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency at the Greenville Health System University Medical Center.  

 

4. What made you want to become a physician?

In high school, I liked science and knew that was what I wanted to do. In college, I realized that I loved people and I wanted to help people.

 

5. Why didn't you go into family medicine instead of becoming a med-ped?

When I first started medicine, I wanted to become a pediatrician , but then I realized how much I liked medicine. Family medicine doesn't have a lot of ped patients and I wanted to see a lot of ped patients.

 

6. What do you like about your profession?

I like being able to see a variety of patients. There's never "one type" of patient that I see.

 

7. What do you not like?

I don't like the paperwork involved and insurance. Insurance is a "necessary evil".

 

8. What do you do on a typical day in this position?

It depends on the day.

 

9. How many people do you supervise and whom do you report to?

When I work at Greenville Memorial, I supervise 30 residents. Whom I report to, depends on the circumstances. Here [at Hillcrest] I report to the physician in charge of the medical department. Overall I report to the head of pediatricians of GHS.

 

10. What part of this job do you find most challenging or satisfying?

A challenge would be stubborn patients. I constantly tell them that they have to make changes and they don't. A rewarding part of my job is when that patient does make changes and turns their life around.

 

11. Do you change the way you see patients if they don't listen?

It depends on the patient. Sometimes, the patient doesn't listen regardless how I tell him or her. Some patients shut down when told they need to change. You need to build trust with the patients and allow them to be a part of their involvement in changes. For example, when I tell a patient that he needs to stop smoking, I ask him what he could do in order to stop smoking.

 

12. What special advice would you give a person entering the field?

Imagine your life in the future in order to prepare for medicine. I never realized how much of my life would be work.

 

13. What, if anything do you wish you had known before you entered this occupation?

I always heard that medicine is hard but I never believed it until I got into medical school. I never knew how much you carry home with you. You don't just carry physical work home; you carry emotional work home as well. This occupation is a challenge of balancing your work and your personal life. You have to have that balance to do well in medicine.

 

14. If you bring emotional work home, how do you de-stress?

My faith is important in the difficult parts of this job. I also spend time with friends outside of work. It's important to have outside destressors.

 

15. How many hours do you typically work each week? Do you often work in the evenings or weekends? Can you arrange your own hours?

I typically work 60 hours each week. I work on the evenings or weekends when I'm on call at the hospital.  In some ways I can rearrange my own hours and some ways I can't.

 

16. What are the "hot issues" in this field?

Changes with insurance and physician reimbursement. There is a shift from fee for service to quality based reimbursement which is more about quality of care of a population of patients. There are pros and cons to this. A pro would be it could be a good thing. Some cons are not everyone fits the measure for the population of intended care. In this reimbursement, you are measuring the amount of times that patients follow your instructions and this could be bad because you may have patients who don't listen and you can get penalized. It would require physicians to check boxes for verifying certain things but it doesn't actually prove that you checked for them.

 

17. If you were starting out again, would you do anything differently?

No

 

18. What personal qualities or abilities are important to being successful as a med-ped?

No laziness. There needs to be a strong work ethic and this work ethic often separates the residents who do well versus the residents that don't do well. There also needs to be compassion in taking care of the patients.