I was raised in a small town in Minnesota and moved to Duluth, MN for undergraduate, graduate and the first two years of medical school. I participated in the Rural Physician Associate Program my third year of medical school and did rotations in a rural community for nine months. I then finished medical school training in Minneapolis-St. Paul. I decided to come to Iowa because of the friendly people and the opportunity to work in a large academic hospital while still living in a smaller city. It was difficult for me to decide on a specialty because I like many areas of medicine, including internal medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics. I specialized in family medicine so that I could continue to see all of these patient populations. I enjoy procedures and surgery as well. We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to assist with C-Sections performed by our fellowship-trained family physician, Dr. Sandra Rosenfeld-O’Toole. I like the flexibility of family medicine and the ability to choose an area to focus on, whether it is women’s health, sports medicine, mission work, teaching, rural emergency medicine, or inpatient hospitalist care. I am married and have two daughters who are 8 and 11. I generally spend my free-time with my family, enjoying both the social outings planned by our department and the many recreational opportunities around Iowa City. Email: paula-hedin@uiowa.edu