Jodi Casados Tierra Amarilla Escalante High School Class of 1993 First-year medical resident UNM School of Medicine

Made in New Mexico :: Jodi Casados by Cathleen Rineer-Garber While attending medical school at UNM, Jodi Casados, like every other student in her class, had a very important decision to make—choosing a specialty. After a great deal of consideration, she says she finally decided on family medicine for several reasons. “I like the patient interaction,” she says. “As a family practice physician, you can develop long-term relationships with your patients. You become an integral part of their lives.” She realized how important patient contact was to her while working as a nuclear medicine technologist after college. “It was interesting and challenging,” says Casados, who earned a bachelor’s degree in nuclear medicine, “but I always wanted to know more about the patients. Who they were and what happened to them.” Casados decided that becoming a family medicine doctor would satisfy that need, and because of her empathetic nature, she thought it would suit her personality. “I can affect people’s lives, not only through my knowledge, but through my humanism,” she says. “I know I can’t cure everyone, but I can make the situation more bearable for them, just by treating them kindly.” Another important factor in Casados’ decision to practice family medicine was her fellow doctors. “Certain personalities tend to be drawn to certain fields. People who have personalities like mine go into family medicine, so I thought I would be very comfortable in that setting.” Being in a place where she feels comfortable is very important to Casados, who grew up in the small community of Tierra Amarilla in northern New Mexico. “I’m a typical country girl,” she says. “I grew up camping and riding horses, surrounded by my family. We had a very simple life,” she says, adding that her father and grandmother were both teachers, and her grandfather was a sheepherder. Although she is the only physician in her family, Casados says she learned of the challenges of providing health care in a small rural community from her mother, who was the director of the community health clinic in Tierrra Amarilla. “I learned very early on how important it is to have health care providers everywhere—in rural and urban areas.” Casados says she hasn’t decided where she’ll end up working—in a city or rural area—or maybe a little of both. “I’d like to try a combination of practicing in a rural and an urban setting,” she says. With most of her family still in Tierra Amarilla, and she and her husband, a business owner, in Albuquerque, she says she already has one foot in the city and one in the country. Regardless of the setting, Casados says, she will definitely stay in New Mexico. “This is where I belong—close to my family. They have been very supportive of me,” she says. “It’s funny, they credit me with accomplishing so much, but really they are the ones who have done it. They took me through this, all the way.”   Return to the Made in New Mexico Feature Article Missed a feature story? Click here to browse our features archive.

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