Jared Brinker, MD

Dr. Jared Brinker is an Odessa native who grew up wanting to be a pediatrician. He says he always loved science and people, but it was his own pediatrician who inspired him the most. While still in high school, Dr. Brinker says he talked Dr. Reddell about his career choice. While at Texas Tech, Dr. Brinker majored in biology with a chemistry minor with his eyes on going on to medical school. While in school, he worked at as a unit secretary at a local hospital. “I got to meet some really nice nurses, really wonderful physicians, go to the bedside with them and watch a little bit about what they did and realized it was a really good fit for me. I realized it would be a good calling for me, you know, I could be happy doing it, and I have been.” While still early in medical school, Dr. Brinker shadowed a family doctor in a rural community. “I realized that family medicine with its broader scope was much more of what I wanted to do. I like the aspect of offering procedures in the office. I like the aspect of being able to do minor procedures and maybe even a little bit of surgery, and occasionally, I do a cesarean here and there.” Dr. Brinker graduated from the Texas Tech Health Science Center School of Medicine. In 2008, he earned Outstanding Senior Medical Student, Family Medicine department honors. Dr. Brinker moved to Fort Worth where he completed his internship and Family Practice residency at John Peter Smith Hospital in 2011. In the following year, he completed an Obstetrics Fellowship at JPS. Dr. Brinker provides full-spectrum care for the whole family with an emphasis on family–centered obstetrics. “I fairly well cover the gamut of medicine. I deliver babies and take care of families as a consequence, a lot of times I will take care of a mom and baby and then inherit the parents and aunts and uncles and rest of the family for healthcare.” Like the other doctors at Grace Health System®, Dr. Brinker is a big proponent of preventative care. “Prevention is a huge part of my practice, very important, and that ranges from kids on to adults. I have my group of 50 and up, who we get to talk about preventative stuff like mammograms, Pap smears, colonoscopies, and then I do a lot of well-children exams. I do a lot of immunizations in the office. I start my kid care from birthing up because I deliver babies and do a lot of preventative screening, developmental screening as well as immunizations and checkups.” In addition to providing comprehensive care to families in Lubbock and the surrounding region, Dr. Brinker has also traveled to Ghana, Haiti and Ethiopia where he set up clinics with a focus on women’s health, tropical diseases, and disaster relief. “You have to rely on your clinical skills. It becomes a very different type of medicine and the constraint it places on you is actually really nice,” says Dr. Brinker. “In Ghana where I have traveled to the most I have been able to do full-spectrum care in the clinic taking care of malaria and other infectious diseases, complete hospital rounds, deliver a lot of babies with the Ghanaian midwives and do cesareans. The medical center in northern Ghana is a very busy hospital, a very remote hospital that is very useful to that community. That work is very fulfilling.” When asked what he likes most about being a doctor, Dr. Brinker says, even on the frustrating days, it “is still just a wonderful thing. It is hard for me to say what I like best about it, I just like everything more or less. I am a pretty optimistic guy.”