As a girl, I remember sitting in the stands at a softball game with my dad when we saw it: The ball flew right at a player’s head and laid her out flat on the turf. She wasn’t getting up. When I turned to my dad, he had already left his seat and was making his way toward her. I wasn’t surprised; he was the “town doc” after all. What surprised me was how calm he was. He barely jogged toward the injured player. “Why isn’t he running?” I thought. “Doesn’t he know how serious this is?”

Looking back, I understand why. When you’re a doctor responding to a crisis, your reaction drives the reactions of those around you. No doubt his mind was scrambling for details, assessing the situation. But he didn’t show it, because he knew the people of Yoakum, Texas, needed him to be cool and collected. As I watched him attend to the player, I knew that I also wanted to provide that essential need. I wanted to be just like him.

Being a small-town doctor means having a concrete, respected place in the community. My father was received with gratitude everywhere he went. If we ate at a local café, every customer wanted to shake his hand. If we attended a high school football game, those whose lives he touched in a positive way approached our family with warmth. I didn’t fully appreciate these moments at the time, but in hindsight, they speak to my enduring desire to follow in his footsteps.

The Rural Gap

My journey to becoming a doctor is non-traditional. In 2004, I had bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agriculture from Texas A&M University and was ready to apply to medical school. Life had other plans. I took my MCAT in April, married my husband in May and was putting my application packet together when I found out I was pregnant in June.

I made a tough decision to put my dream on hold to raise my family. We moved from College Station to Shiner, Texas, where I took a job as a high school teacher and told myself I would go back to school when the time was right. Thirteen years later, I heard my calling and finally applied to medical schools.

What drove me back is the same reality that drives me today: Rural Texas needs doctors. Desperately. Texas has the largest rural population in the United States. One in five Texans live in rural areas, and yet Texas ranks 46th among states for number of rural physicians. Many Texans drive an hour or more to reach their closest primary care doctor. Rural communities are at the heart of what makes Texas special, but when it comes to access to quality health care, they’re being hung out to dry.

Imagine if the entire state of Arkansas didn’t have a psychiatrist. There would be cable news segments, legislative action and social media campaigns. After all, people need basic mental health practitioners. But consider this: The population of Arkansas is 3 million. The combined population of the 185 Texas counties without a psychiatrist is 3.1 million.