Dr. Natalie Hart '24 with Dr. Lindsay Ash '21 in South Carolina
Dr. Natalie Hart ’24 is living the dream.
That phrase is more often than not delivered with irony. But for Hart, it is 100% sincere. After graduating with her pharmacy doctorate and a bachelor’s in pharmaceutical sciences in May 2024, Hart started a residency program in July at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). She is gaining experience as a pharmacist in a primary care office as well as at specialty cardiology and diabetes clinics. She soaks up the sun at the beach.
“I’m so happy, I’m beyond excited,” Hart said by phone from Charleston. “It’s a new adventure.”
To what does she owe this opportunity? She credits her participation in the professional fraternity Phi Delta Chi and the connections she made with alumni.
In fact, it was those connections that helped set Hart’s sights on the Carolinas. A native of Syracuse, N.Y., who spent six years in Albany, she was drawn by alumni’s tales of the Carolinas’ Goldilocks-perfect climate – not too hot and not too cold. She came to believe that “people down South are just happier.”
When it was time to schedule clinical rotations in her final year of pharmacy training, Hart reached out to fellow fraternity members and ACPHS alumni Drs. Kevin Ash ‘18 and Lindsay Ash ‘21, who agreed to host her at their home so she could afford to live in another state for a couple of months. Kevin Ash connected Hart to Dr. Trisha Reed, who agreed to serve as her preceptor at a CVS in Greenville, S.C.
Hart found that she did indeed like the area. A lot. She later did an inpatient rotation at Bon Secours Health System in Greenville, training under preceptor Dr. Ryan Lally ’17.
It was doing rounds with Lally that gave Hart insight into where she wanted to be.
“It was really good to go on rounds and see how my preceptor was an invaluable person in an interdisciplinary team,” she said.
The experience led her to apply for a residency at MUSC, even though the first round of residency applications had already passed.
After she was accepted and visited the area, she found a beach near MUSC where she had spent time as a very young child. In addition to the excitement over her residency, she has experienced a warm sense of nostalgia.
“This Charleston thing – it seems like I was meant to be here,” she said.
This article originally appeared in Breakthroughs & Advances, Fall 2024.