Finding her fit in the heart of Texas

As a teenager, Chloe Todd ’21 ’25 always seemed to be the person her soccer teammates turned to when they were injured. Now, the native of Round Rock, Texas, is looking forward to combining her caring nature and talent for problem solving with the knowledge she’s gained from the Texas A&M University College of Medicine to become a physician serving a Texas rural community. 

Todd’s interest in rural medicine is a result of being one of the first Aggies to participate in the college’s innovative Rural Medicine Program. Launched in 2021, this initiative is designed to address the critical physician shortage currently found in 94 percent of Texas non-metro counties. The program partners with 48 rural communities that agree to host Aggie externs like Todd for short rotations to help them see the scope of rural medicine. Additionally, the Rural Medicine Program engages with these communities’ school districts to spark K-12 students’ interest in pursuing a rural medical career in an effort to create a pipeline of rural medical professionals. 

The program launched during Todd’s first year of medical school and she immediately jumped at the chance. Over the course of her medical school experience, Todd has spent time in Mason, Menard, Brady, Junction, Llano, San Saba, Beeville, Junction, Clifton and Brownwood.

“I had no idea what rural medicine was before this,” she said. “I had planned to go into emergency medicine but found that I like the scope of practice that rural physicians have. You’re not pigeonholed into doing just clinic or just hospital service or just one sub-specialty; you really get to practice medicine as a whole. It’s excellent continuity of care for the patients and also helps to keep me current on all the fields of medicine.” 

As one of the program’s trailblazers, Todd has had the opportunity to share her experience with Texas policymakers and Texas A&M President Mark A. Welsh III. She also continually encourages other Aggie medical students to participate in the program and was instrumental in the formation of an official student interest group that creates a sense of community for Aggies interested in learning about and practicing rural medicine. 

A problem-solving career

Todd didn’t find herself gravitating toward a medical career while growing up.

“I bounced around to a lot of different things that I thought I was interested in, but nothing really clicked,” she said. “I think the big thing for me was that I loved problem solving. Everything I considered before finding medicine—forensic science or working for the FBI—had this common theme of wanting to solve problems.” 

Yet medicine seemed to always hover in the background. Todd loved delving into the basics of her fifth-grade basic anatomy class and closely watched her own healing process when she was injured playing soccer. Her knowledge base began to grow to the point where she served as the trainer for her high school soccer team because she was so well-versed in everything from wrapping sprained joints to administering concussion protocols. 

However, Todd still was not sure of her life’s direction as she entered her final year in high school.

“I was good at school, so everyone told me to go to medical school,” she said. “My senior year of high school, I decided, ‘Well, I haven’t found anything else.’” 

But her decision began to solidify later in the school year.

“I did an internship with a physician at a nursing home, which was the exact opposite of emergency medicine, which I was considering pursuing,” she said. “But I ended up loving it. I just really liked how she was able to relate to her patients. That was when I decided to pursue medicine, because it has problem-solving that involves both making a diagnosis and deciding how to best treat the patient once you have that diagnosis. You have to figure out the right solution.” 

With a clear path forward, Todd enrolled at Texas A&M University to study biology. As a sophomore, she decided to participate in the Science to Medicine Program, now the Aggies to Medicine Program. As part of the program, she was able to hear from guest speakers who shared information on specialties and received assistance on applying to medical school. Todd found the program especially helpful.

“I don’t have anyone in my close family in medicine to talk to,” she said. “And honestly, the path to medical school is super confusing, and I’m not sure if I would have known exactly what to do had it not been for this program.” 

An intense education

After being accepted to Texas A&M University’s College of Medicine, Todd quickly learned that she wasn’t totally prepared for the rigorous expectations. 

“I thought I had been a pretty good student as an undergrad, and then medical school just turns it up so much,” she said. “That first year you feel like you’re drowning, and it wasn’t completely what I thought it was. I thought when I got to medical school that I was finally going to learn how to treat patients, but really, the first two years are largely spent just studying all the things you need to know in order to do patient care.” 

But the second year’s clinicals reinforced that she had made a wise decision to pursue medical school—and her third-year experience brought the previous two years’ experiences into alignment.

“I got to my third-year rotations and really saw a difference in how we were taught to do a physical exam, the skills to chart and how to deliver bad news,” Todd said. “They really trained us well and had the expectation that we’d be excellent in every aspect of the job.” 

Todd credits the high caliber of faculty for setting these expectations. She also has appreciated the chance to learn about the day-to-day practicalities of medicine from long-time practitioners, such as Bill Bass, MD, an affiliate clinical associate professor who had a 60-year medical practice, and Mark Sicilio, MD, the associate department head for the Primary Care & Rural Medicine and Humanities in Medicine departments who has 35 years of experience treating infants, children, adolescents and young adults.  

Todd also grabbed many opportunities to connect with her fellow Aggie medical students and to put her medical training into practice. She served as president and treasurer of the Christian Medical Association, participated in medical mission trips to the Dominican Republic and Peru, and assisted with Feed My Sheep clinics that served children in Temple, Texas. 

Todd’s next phase of medical training involves moving to Wichita, Kansas, where she’ll do her residency in family medicine with an emphasis on rural medicine and obstetrics at Ascension Via Christi with the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita. And while she’s sad to be leaving Texas, she’s already met several Aggies who noticed her ring and have promised to provide a sense of community in the Sunflower State.  

But she’s ultimately planning to return to the Texas Hill Country and embody the Aggie Core Values through serving as both a rural health care provider and a community leader.

“I saw how rural physicians were able to be community leaders in their church or school board, so you get to really serve people inside and outside of medicine,” she said. “You have to be such a moral person to work as a physician in a rural town—and I think Texas A&M’s College of Medicine and its commitment to the Aggie Core Values train you well to be that kind of physician.”