TONY STINNETT, Courier Co-Editor
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 3:41 am
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What Blankenship never considered was working with or for her father; Dr. James Spurlock, M.D., at the Mountain View Medical Family Practice in Woodbury.
Blankenship, who served as the keynote speaker for the annual Cannon County Career Women’s Luncheon Friday (July 27), is the newest member of the medical staff at Stones River Hospital, and she starts at Mountain View Medical seeing patients, Aug. 1.
“A lot of people ask me if I’m worried about working with my dad and how the relationship will change or how that will go,” Blankenship said. “Honestly, I would be more nervous if I didn’t know the people I was going to practice with.
“(Working with my dad) is unique for me because I know his work ethic and his values because I have grown up with them. I am a lot more comfortable going into this situation then I would have been going in with people I would have only known on the surface. Through the years, the closer I got to graduating residency the more I started to realize the value in working with a family member.”
Blankenship completed her residency for the University Of Tennessee College Of Medicine at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga in June. She also attended the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Samford University. She attended Gallatin High School in Gallatin, Tenn.
The aspiring doctor knew medicine was her path prior to reaching Gallatin High School.
“It was probably around middle school age that I became interested in (medicine) and started volunteering at the hospital,” Blankenship said. “Every exposure I had to medicine formed my opinion and even more strongly in that area so I became more and more passionate about it. It was really the one thing I had my sights set on. Honestly, there was not much of a Plan B so it is a good thing it worked out.”
Blankenship said she looks forward to working with patients in Cannon County and learning the character of the people throughout the area.