It was around this same time last year as Carlisle-native Erica Savage-Jeter started looking at where she wanted to work after finishing her residency.

During her Christmas break, she came to Union and met with officials from the Union Hospital District and that’s when she started toying with the prospect of coming home to Union County to practice as an option.

The family physician at Carolinas Health Associates Family Practice and her husband Jamie were considering — with the economy in the state of disarray as it was — selling their home and moving and when she started her residency at Palmetto Health Family Medicine Residency in Columbia she had been offered a position there as part of the academic team. Savage-Jeter also had other viable options to consider.

But it was the draw of her home and family that kept the idea of coming back to Union to work in the forefront of her mind.

That thought became reality when she and her family moved back to Union County where she finished her residency in the Union Hospital District and became one of the newest members of the CHA Family Practice medical staff as of Sept. 15.

“We were here all the time,” Savage-Jeter said.

The family — including 3-year-old son Taylor — traveled from Columbia almost on a weekly basis for church on Sundays and came back for every family event.

When one of the attendings she was working with in Columbia asked her “Why not Union?” she replied “I don’t know why not Union.”

“I always said I wanted to practice in small town South Carolina,” Savage-Jeter said, adding rural medicine was her ambition from day one of medical school.

She also wanted her son to know his extended family and what it is to grow up with them all around and in a rural setting. The decision to come back was a family one. The three moved back to Union County toward the end of this summer.

And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Savage-Jeter spent the first few weeks of her practice getting used to the hospital district and family practice clinic and then was off and running.

“It’s been great,” she said.

Starting a practice in her home county has its advantages.

“Half the patients I see know me already or at least know my name,” Savage-Jeter said, adding because she knows the community and so many of the people she treats she also knows their lifestyles helping her determine treatment plans and diagnoses.

But there’s also a more complicated side.

“A lot of people watched me grow up,” Savage-Jeter said.

She said patients have expectations and she has expectations of them — knowing so many of them and so many of them knowing her is a good aspect but it also can be trying at times.

“I think it’s a little added pressure,” Savage-Jeter said. “But I think it just makes us focus on what I need to do and be sure to do what they need to do.”

Really, she sees it as the same kind of pressure any doctor would face practicing in a small town environment because it doesn’t take long for people to get to know the new person in town.

“You’re not new long,” Savage-Jeter said.

She spends probably about 80 hours a week at work at the clinic or at Wallace Thomson Hospital, seeing between 80-90 patients. Savage-Jeter — like her counterparts — also takes call when she’s scheduled. She also serves on the Union County High School football team’s emergency medical staff and is involved in her church.

And she’s enjoying all of it.

“It’s been great getting to know the people in the hospital, the office and in the community,” Savage-Jeter said. “Because I don’t know everybody.”

The experience is what she was expecting, but Savage-Jeter said that’s a good thing. She also is thankful for the support she’s gotten from the doctors on staff at the clinic in helping her get adjusted to life outside of residency, work in a private practice and hospital medicine.

“They’ve been great,” Savage-Jeter said.

That hometown allure she felt before choosing Union County as her place of employment hasn’t changed, either. The 29-year-old is looking at not only a happy career with the Union Hospital District but also an extended one.

She’s planning on getting more involved with the community — an aspect that comes with the job of being a family medical doctor — and is looking forward to the years to come at CHA Family Practice.

So in 10 years, where does she see herself?

“I hope to be sitting here at the same desk,” Savage-Jeter said.

AT A GLANCE:

Dr. Erica L.

Savage-Jeter

AGE: 29

HOMETOWN: Carlisle

POSITION: Physician with Carolinas Health Associates Family Practice, Union.

PAST EMPLOYMENT: 2002, assistant for Union City Administrator; 1999-2002, employee of Carolina Diabetic Supply Inc., Columbia.

EDUCATION: 2007-09, resident, Palmetto Health Family Medicine Residency, Columbia; 2006-07, intern, Palmetto Health Family Medicine Residency, Columbia; 2002-06, MD, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia; 1998-2002, BS, Biology, Wofford College, Spartanburg; 1998 graduate of Union High School.

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS: American Medical Association, South Carolina Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, South Carolina Academy of Family Physicians, Quality Improvement Driver Team Member for Palmetto Health Family Medicine Residency.

AWARDS: 2008, selected Fellow, AAFP Annual Scientific Assembly.

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES: Emergency physician for the Union County High School football team; active member and Youth Mentor to Wyatt’s Chapel Church; Columbia Free Medical Clinic, 2006-present; Lutheran Hospice volunteer, 2005; Project H.E.A.R.T, 2002-06; Youth Science Enrichment Program, 2002-06; secretary, SNMA, 2003-04; Tar Wars, 2002-04; mentor to USC MAPs Chapter, 2002-04; SNMA representative at National Convention, 2002-04; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, 2002-present; T.O.T.A.L Ministries, 2000-02; Diabetes educator for Bayer Health Care, 2008.