August 2024

Ashley Pittman, MD

Hi Ashley, start off by letting us know where are you from and can you describe what it was like growing up there?

So I was born and raised about 20 to 30 minutes north of Chicago in a I would say a small sized town called Waukegan, IL.
My whole family on my mom's side was pretty much born and raised there, so I would say it was really good.

I got a chance to grow up around my cousins and family and go to some of the same schools that my mom and my aunt attended when they were a young girl.

I enjoyed living in Waukegan – it is a town where most people knew someone in your family.

That’s really cool.
I'm sure you'd go to school and people would say “oh, you look like so and so..”

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
So a lot of people knew my mom and my aunt or my grandmother or other family members, so it was good. And naturally, just being close to Chicago is always fun going down to the city and hanging out and getting good food at as a young girl.

That’s awesome.
Where did you go to college? Med school? And tell us a little bit about why you decided to go to those institutions.

For undergrad, I went to the University of Kentucky and the reason I ended up choosing UK for undergrad was a lot of different reasons. So at the time, I knew I wanted to do a medical laboratory science, and that was the only program when I was applying back in 2012 that offered it as a four year degree. So that was the big reason why I applied. It was a halfway point between both my mom and my dad. My mom lived in Illinois and my dad lived in Memphis, TN, so it was about 6 hours each way away from home, so that was the big deciding factor for me as well. And then lastly, they offered me the most money to attend, so that was that.

I know that’s right.

So that was the final the final deciding piece. And it was good to go to UK, especially during that time. They were high up on the basketball ranking, so I got the chance to go to some football and basketball games during that time and really be a part of the John Calipari era prior to him leaving. It was really fun being there during that time.

Wow, that's cool.
And then what about Med school?

I went to Med school at the Medical College of Wisconsin. That is in Milwaukee, WI and I was able to basically return back home. Waukee is about 40 minutes north of my hometown, so I was able to be close to family and actually learn medicine and kind of get my initial training in a city that was very similar to my own upbringing. It was fun being in Milwaukee. I got a chance to see the bucks when they won the championship.

Oh wow. Maybe you're like the good luck charm or something?

Maybe, haha.

Now for some more basic but important questions: when did you know that you wanted to be a doctor?
And then when did you decide you wanted to be a urologist?

So I decided that I wanted to become a doctor and go into medicine during my sophomore year of college. So I was a kind of a late bloomer to the medical field, but I had a roommate who was premed and she always talked about medicine and medical school and all of these things. 

She invited me to attend an event with her one day with a surgical oncologist who spoke with us that day and he was just so encouraging, so welcoming. He encouraged us to come shadow him in the operating room and if we were interested in another specialty, he would be more than willing to put us in contact with the physician to shadow. And I took him up on that offer. I remember the first surgery I went to see was a whipple procedure, and I kind of fell in love. 

From that point on I got a chance to shadow couple different doctors. When I was trying to research more about medicine, I was looking for a specialty that had a longitudinal care aspect, but also where you did procedures and surgery. And I came across Urology but didn't know what the field really entailed.

So I emailed some people in the community and I found a Urologist to shadow and after my second shadowing experience, I pretty much fell in love with the specialty. I thought it was really cool that they got a chance to be in clinic and manage people from a medical side, but then also when that when you got to the point where medical, the medical side of it or pharmaceutical side was not working, you can take them to the operating room and fix their problems.

So I really fell in love with this specialty and yeah, I’ve kind of been on this urology train since I was a junior in college.

That’s nice. And how did your family react when you told them you wanted to pursue Urology? And when you explained to them like, yeah, this is what urology is..

I think you know, naturally all the jokes transpired. Why would you just wanna be a doctor for men? You know all those things, all the jokes came along with that decision. And I remember during my graduation dinner, my dad made a joke that no matter what, I would never be his urologist.

That is so funny!

I think a lot of people think they know what urology was, so initially there was a lot of explaining and I think there's still a lot of explaining that takes place right now. But you know I think everybody took it well and there was a lot of jokes and just laughter surround you it which was nice.

Yes, that’s so true. And then how did you feel about when match day came and you opened up the portal and you saw your matched at Vandy? Can you describe how that felt?

Literal tears. I remember I kind of had like a little zoom get together with  family cause everybody couldn't make it. And when I opened the message, I just immediately started crying. I was so excited and so happy that I matched, but also that I matched at Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt was my #1 program. Nashville is close to home for my dad and I knew I had my sister here. Vandy offered everything that I was looking for – a big program, high volume, a lot of female leadership. And Vanderbilt also walks the walk when it comes to diversity and inclusion. Which is everything that I wanted in a program and to be quite honest, I didn't think that I would match here, so that made it better because when it happened I was just like man, I really couldn’t believe it.

That's so awesome! And I will say when we saw your name we were excited too, so excited goes both ways. Ah, I love your story.

Good, I'm glad!

What would you say has been like the biggest highlight of residency so far. You know you're 5 weeks in now, girl.

Yes, yes, five weeks in and I think the thing that I realized the most is that wow, you know, I really get a chance to be a part of a person's most vulnerable time in their life. I think when people are hospitalized and they're sick, people are very vulnerable. They're scared. They don't know what to think.

But even as an intern, you walk into a room and you have to introduce yourself as their doctor and they look to you to provide answers and to provide a sense of relief and security. I think that has been the biggest wow factor for me is that wow, I get to spend the rest of my life doing this for people and just really being for them in their time of need. And then naturally, I started off on urology at the VA.

So I got to get my hands wet in the operating room, doing cystoscopies and learning to put the scope together and all those things. So all of that has been as amazing as well.

Yeah you did a great job and set the bar for your class for sure. The VA misses you but you will be back before you know it!

Yes, ma'am.

So what are some things that you like to do when you're not at work and want to have some fun?

I always love to try a new restaurant that's like top of the list. I’m a big foodie. I enjoy trying the new restaurant scene in Nashville's and it’s been great so far. After that, I like to do like sporting events like basketball games, football games. So I definitely look forward to going to a predator game. I also love watching Netflix and catching up on a good a series. And then, you know, I haven't had a chance to just yet, but I gotta get back on my DJ'ing. That's something I always love doing.

Yeah.

That's my go to. I love listening to music and live music, and practice getting better.

And how did you get into D.J? That’s such a cool hobby.

Well, I think it's my love for music. That's something you know when I'm having a bad day, or maybe I'm having a bad moment, I can literally turn on some music, sing my heart out and then I'm feeling better. So yeah, I just always kind of had this love for music and then I had a friend in Med school who he used to D.J all of our school gatherings and stuff, and I just thought it was so cool. So I hung out with him a couple of times and he showed me some things and I just said, you know what? I'm gonna get my own turntable and give it a try.

That's so cool. So after every in service for the last couple of years, Bryn has been hosting us all at her place for a post in service party and we have to get you to DJ!

Oh wow, okay!

Do you have a D.J. name?

I don't have it D.J name. So I'm hoping I can get one by the time residences ends.

We gotta get you one. Girl, you know, we all love to be in everybody's business so somebody will come up with a name for you.

Good, good.

And then and you said you liked to try new restaurants and stuff. Do you have a favorite type of food or class of food?

I would say I like food in general, but if I had to pick, I love Mexican food. I also love just classic American BBQ.

Yeah, I feel like Nashville is good for Mexican and of course BBQ. Do you think Memphis BBQ is better or do you like the Nashville BBQ that you've had better?

I would say so far, I've only been to two BBQ places here and I will say it's actually been good. It's more authentic, I think, like real BBQ that is not a chain BBQ. And people are actually smoking meat on the grill, so I would say probably here has been better than Memphis so far.

OK, I will not tell your dad you said that haha. And then what would you say was your favorite place that you traveled to? And then do you have any places that you're like, man, I really wanna go like here in the next couple years.

I would say as far as my favorite place that I've traveled, I would say Cancun has been probably my favorite. I've been there a couple times. Mexico is always a nice vibe and the weather is nice to get the beaches. And I would say the place I'm looking forward to travel to the most before I graduate residency would be somewhere like Bora Bora, just somewhere tropical.

Down to the last few questions: what would you say is a fact about you that not many people know?

I don't think many people know it because I think I do a good job of not trying to be this way, but I'm an only child. I try my hardest not to display only child syndrome.

I would have never guessed. Yeah, you don't come across as the only child for sure. You definitely come across like you're like the oldest of like four siblings or something.

So outside of being a good surgeon and things like that, what is 1 big goal that you have for your time in residency?

So I would say outside of, you know, naturally learning how to be a great urologist, a great surgeon, a great clinician, I think the one thing that I would love to learn before I leave residency is more financial literacy. I think growing up, you know, it wasn't a whole lot of that education taking place. There was some from my dad and my mom as they would share what they could, but I think there's so much more to finance and finances and especially when you're a doctor, that most of us don't know about.

I think that's awesome that you're already thinking about it, girl. That’s definitely something we could all use more education on. My last question: What advice would you say you have to those who are trying to follow in your footsteps and match into Urology?

I would say to future applicants work hard, dream big and never give up on your goals. If you have aspirations to do anything in life or go anywhere in life, set up a goal/finished line and then think about the steps that you need to take to get to that finish line. And once you have all that in place, never give up and just keep working hard and you will get to exactly where you are supposed to be.

Ohh, I love that! Well, thank you so much for taking the time to let us get to know you better! I know you have other things going on, so I appreciate you taking the time to chat and I’m so excited for you to do so many great things in our program and beyond. So just keep up the good work.

Thank you!

We're so excited for you!

And I look forward to learning from you in your last year here and working more with you and all the Chiefs and everybody here in the program. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Me too! Intern year is a great year and I think that you have shown in just one month that you're gonna be a fantastic example of our program. 

Thank you!

interview conducted by Tiwa Akinsola, MD

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