Janet Tamaren, M.D., practiced medicine in rural Kentucky for nearly two decades. She wrote her memoir, A YANKEE DOCTOR IN THE BIBLE BELT, as a humorous look at medicine in small-town America. The memoir features a colorful cast of characters inspired by real-life patients, although names have been changed to protect privacy.

 

Tamaren graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver with a bachelor’s degree in biology after transferring from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. She went on to earn a master’s degree in genetics counseling and a master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She planned to pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but she decided to follow her lifelong dream of going to medical school instead.

 

She graduated from the University of Kentucky Medical School in Lexington, Ky. She worked for a variety of rural health clinics in all parts of the state before starting her own clinic in northeastern Kentucky. She started writing her memoir after retiring from the field of medicine in 2019.

 

“I kept thinking about these patients and I wanted to write down their stories before I forgot,” Tamaren said. “They told me their stories, and they were part of my life, and I think about them even though I’ve retired.”

 

Tamaren related to her patients as a mother, as well as a doctor. She raised three children while working as a doctor, which required its own balancing act. Tamaren’s upbringing in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, did not include any role models of women who worked as doctors.

 

“Whoever you meet, however grand you think their life is, they have a back story and they’re struggling with something,” Tamaren said.

 

Janet lives in the Denver area and is studying for a black belt in babysitting grandchildren.

 

Dr. Janet Tamaren