Dr. Jim Carlile always knew he wanted to go into medicine.
But it took a team of physicians to convince Dr. Jim Carlile he should go into pediatrics.
“I wanted to do gastroenterology because I was fascinated with endoscopy procedures where you look down into someone’s stomach and things like that,” Carlile said. “One of the professors of pediatrics called me in and said the pediatric department here feels that you have a gift in pediatrics. Would you consider it?”
Carlile’s initial reaction was no. But the pediatric professor promised to write Carlile glowing recommendations for gastroenterology if he didn’t like a few of the pediatric classes the department had in mind for him.
That started Carlile’s journey to helping children through medicine. The Brantley native went to Troy and then medical school at the University of Alabama Birmingham. He did his residency at Children’s Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, where faculty picked him to be chief resident. While Carlile was chief resident, the hospital’s operator summoned him to the lobby. It wasn’t a patient or parent.
“It was my professor who encouraged me to go into pediatrics,” Carlile said. “She said she heard I was chief resident and asked how I liked pediatrics now.”
Carlile told his professor she was correct in pushing him to the speciality he didn’t want to be in at the start.
“God gives you a gift that you don't even know that you have,” Carlile said. “It takes strangers to point it out to you, because you can't see it. You're blinded by your own wishes and your own wants.”
Carlile landed in Decatur, Alabama, after residency leading a children’s and women’s medical program. He then went to Montgomery.
“I was spending five minutes or less with patients,” Carlile said. “I wasn’t getting to know them and their families.”
In 2007 Carlile came to Elmore County and Ivy Creek.
“Elmore County is a totally different world,” Carlile said. “It’s more like an extended family here. I get to spend more time with my patients. I get to know them. They get to know me.”
Carlile raised his family in Elmore County and his practice Carlile Pediatrics continues to grow.
“Now my patients are having kids,” Carlile said. “Now they're bringing them back here, and it's just wonderful. I'm not a grandparent, but I now know how a grandparent would feel, because you are just so proud when you see that newborn baby of the patient that you saw when they were little.”
Carlile also studied adolescent medicine. He thought he would like to treat students on college campuses. It allows him to treat patients up to the age of 21. But he didn’t do it.
“I just feel really called to treat children,” Carlile said. “It is an amazing feeling to work with children and build relationships with them and their families. I’m really blessed to be doing what I’m called to do.”
