Couple Shares Passion for Healthcare, Children

High school sweethearts Amy and Jason Smith married two months before Jason started medical school, and had three children during his residency. Though both say that was a challenging time, parenting has brought them tremendous joy.

Jason, an otolaryngologist, and Amy, an occupational therapist who works with children with disabilities, also find fulfillment helping others through their work.

Then, four years ago, the couple found a new way to help children in need.

“We became acutely aware of the need for foster and adoptive parents in our state,” Jason said. “We became foster parents three years ago. We fostered our son Conner for over a year, fell in love, and adopted him when he was 15 months. This experience has truly changed my outlook on life.”

Along with Connor and the couple’s biological children Luke, 8, Landon, 6, and Clay 5, the Smiths currently are fostering a 12-year-old boy.

With five boys in the house, “life is crazy at times,” Jason admits. “But we feel we are right where God wants us to be – which is what it is all about.”

The couple says they’ve found a new passion in helping children who are growing up in foster care.

“We want to raise our boys in a home were they see on a daily basis that we must love others,” Amy said. “We want to provide a safe home for children that need a place to call home.”

Partnering with another couple, the Smiths started an orphans’ ministry through their church to raise awareness of children in foster care. They also plan to continue to foster children in their home.
Both come from tight-knit families themselves. Jason, born in Valdosta, Ga., in 1975, was the oldest of three boys. His father’s career as an Air Force pilot required them to move frequently, but the family finally settled in Cabot, Ark., when he was 14.

Amy grew up in Cabot, where her parents are schoolteachers and her younger sister is an optometrist.

Jason and Amy met during their freshman year in high school, and have been together ever since. She went to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway while he was at Duke University in North Carolina, but they continued to date all through college.

Jason recalls being interested in medicine as early as junior high. Having ACL reconstruction during his senior year in high school caused him to consider a surgical career, and he pursued this interest through a major in biology and math at Duke.

Still, he had a chance to follow in his father’s footsteps as a military pilot.

“The Air Force paid for my way through school through Air Force ROTC,” he said. “I was accepted to pilot training and had to turn it down to pursue pre-med, which was a difficult decision as I did not know at the time whether I would be accepted to medical school.”

But he was accepted, and began his medical training at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1997.

“My rotation through otolaryngology in my third year of medical school is what drew me to otolaryngology,” he said. “I enjoyed the complexity of the head and neck anatomy and surgical procedures in our field.”

After an internship in general surgery at UAMS, he did his residency in otolaryngology there while also serving as an officer in the Arkansas Air National Guard. He has worked at the Arkansas Otolaryngology Center since 2007.

Amy, who practices pediatric occupational therapy at The Center for Early Learning in Little Rock, said she started her college career with no clue of what she wanted to do with her life.

“I was encouraged by my aunt who was a speech therapist to spend some time exploring therapy as a career,” she said. “I shadowed a speech, physical and then occupational therapist. I never considered another career after my first hour with an occupational therapist.

“I love being an occupational therapist. I could not imagine doing any other profession. I love working with children with disabilities,” such as autism, behavioral issues and mental retardation.

“These children are special and unique, and I love getting to know all of their personalities. When you get to be a part of their progress and watch them reach their potential, it is the most rewarding experience.”

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