Critical care

When her patients allow medical students to sit in on their appointments, Dr. Annette Chavez ’81 often tells them, “Thank you for teaching the next generation of doctors.”

The beloved family doctor receives similar gratitude from the countless University of Dayton premedical students and alumni for whom she has provided hands-on learning in patient-centered care. It’s an education far from the bedlam depicted in popular medical dramas, one that demonstrates the critical role family medicine plays in the collaboration between patients and physicians to build and restore good health. 

“The better you know your patients, the less likely you are to miss something important,” observed Seth Adams ’21, who learned from Chavez the value of taking time to talk with patients — and, when possible, treating multiple generations of the same family. A fourth-year medical student at the University of Toledo, he chose family medicine after working as a medical assistant in her office. “[Her] legacy will carry on far beyond because of her overall commitment to shepherding the next generation of future doctors.” 

It turns out, such experiences also help these Flyers get admitted to and succeed in medical school. 

“These are my substitute kids,” Chavez said, smiling when she thinks about Flyers now serving as physicians and physician assistants across the country. “I love seeing them learn new skills and making connections.” 

Family medicine — and more

In all the ways she teaches, Chavez offers multifaceted mentorship to UD students and alumni:

• Numerous undergraduates have gained a close-up look at family medicine by job-shadowing Chavez.
  
  
• Hundreds more have taken her spring medical terminology course that helps juniors and seniors with the language of medical school; she also peppers her lectures with stories and nuggets of wisdom from nearly 40 years of family practice.
  
  
• She has accompanied more than 300 UD students in the past 15 years on medical brigades to treat underserved populations in Central and South America.
  
  
• Many alumni choose her practice for one of their required rotations during their third year of medical school.

Perhaps most significantly, Chavez has developed an innovative program employing premedical alumni in her office during their gap year after graduation. Chavez has trained and hired 27 Flyers — three every year — as certified medical assistants at Carillon Family Practice, which she established in 2001 with her husband, Greg Davis. Their practice is a 5-minute drive from campus. 

The program was an inspiration born of necessity, Chavez said, as she had trouble in a tight job market replacing nurses when hers retired.

Her assistants build clinical skills — from taking vitals to administering vaccines. In an era when many medical students worry that profits take precedence over patients, the woman they affectionately call “Doc” is demonstrating compassionate and patient-centered care.

“Doc has taught me that each room has a story, and that it’s important to step back for a moment and realize that the patient in that room is the main character in that story,” said current assistant Kayla Ogburn ’25.

“You have the power to change that moment and to make them feel better, to make them laugh with you.”

Former medical assistant Haley Michael ’21 said her mentor’s compassion is inspiring: “Even in the middle of a busy day, she was always taking the time to teach us; she is always working to create new health care professionals.” 

Life after loss

Chavez’s passion for mentoring students came after profound personal loss. After struggling with infertility, she and her husband were thrilled with the news of her pregnancy. 

Their baby daughter died in utero at 19 weeks.

Chavez wrote movingly of their loss in a 2020 article for The Journal of the American Medical Association: “We held each other as our dreams shattered around us. No pulling the baby on the sled in the snow, no first day of school, no driving lessons, no wedding and no grandchildren. No one to call us mom and dad.”

The death of their daughter only deepened her empathy for what her patients are going through, Chavez said: “Living through adversity does make you more human, more available to your patients, and more able for you to help them to process their loss. I know that. It is especially important to acknowledge pregnancy loss. No matter how early it is, the minute you get that positive pregnancy test, you’re planning their wedding.”

After mourning the dream of parenthood, the couple rededicated themselves to the service of others, particularly young people. That journey started with the first of 10 medical missions on which she has accompanied UD students to countries such as Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama. 

“I didn’t get to have any kids, so I really enjoyed being with them,” she recalled. “Even in my classes, I don’t get the kind of interactions as I do on these medical trips. I love hearing about college life and their dreams for the future. We have a blast.”

The students’ work isn’t always over after a long day at the village clinic. Chavez often teaches the students how to tie surgical knots using yarn as suture material.

She’s also a born storyteller, said Elizabeth Rhoads ’06, UD’s director of premedical programs. “She is constantly teaching them, taking the time between patients to teach about the case,” Rhoads said. “During the weeklong international trips, there are conversations over meals and during bus rides. Dr. Chavez is providing mentorship across the entire trip.”

Chavez has an ulterior motive — encouraging students to consider family medicine as a specialty. “This is a chance for them to see me as a regular person who enjoys my career,” she said.

“Medicine isn’t only about Grey’s Anatomy and emergency rooms.”

Her bond with UD students strengthened when she started hiring them for yearlong stints as medical assistants. Her dedication to the role of mentor, she recognizes, is a way of redirecting the energy she would have thrown into motherhood. “If we had children, I wouldn’t have had as much time to devote to the student stuff,” she said. “This is a different kind of relationship, a different kind of gift.”

A total Flyer kid

It is small wonder Chavez wants to give back to her alma mater; she says UD has blessed her life in more ways than she can count. They hired her late father, the Distinguished Education Professor Simon Chavez, in 1954 — a time when he faced hiring discrimination because of his Hispanic heritage.

Even after Simon Chavez earned his doctorate in education from the University of Colorado, he struggled to find a full-time teaching job and was forced to pick up odd jobs on road crews and construction sites.

The family prayed fervently to the Blessed Virgin Mary for a university faculty position. Their prayers were answered when he and his wife, Anna Marie, learned of a position as an elementary education professor at a Midwestern university run by Marianist brothers. The couple moved to Dayton with their two young daughters, initially living in one of the Quonset huts that served as faculty housing in the present-day Parking Lot B, and later raising their family in Kettering. It was an idyllic childhood for young Annette, the fourth of the couple’s five children. 

“We grew up total Flyers kids, and there was never any thought among the five of us that we would go anywhere else for college,” Chavez said.

At age 5, she declared her dream to become a nurse, proudly sporting a Nurse Nancy costume. She was distraught when she found out UD didn’t have a nursing school.

“Well, you know,” her mother said, “you could become a doctor and still go to UD.”

It was a novel idea for a young girl growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, but Chavez started reading books about doctors. By high school, she had set her path, encouraged by her father’s advice that “you can be anything you want to be, as long as you work hard for it.”

Life as a UD student lived up to her high expectations. She described her fellow premedical students as “very collegial, never cutthroat, like you hear at some other schools where they try to sabotage each other.” She drove to and from campus every day with her professor father, absorbing lessons about the way he mentored his students.

At UD Chavez encountered none of the gender discrimination she later faced at the Ohio State University College of Medicine, where women comprised only 28 percent of her class. She can still feel the sting of a remark from a classmate who declared his wife would stay home and take care of the kids.

She didn’t realize until much later that she was pursuing the unfulfilled dream of her maternal grandmother, Henrietta Lobato, who aspired to become a doctor in early 20th-century Colorado. She married instead and raised 13 children, losing three of them to childhood illnesses that could be easily treated today. Although she couldn’t study medicine, Lobato became a healer in her own right, adopting the book The Home Physician as her Bible and caring for family
and neighbors when a doctor wasn’t available.

Chavez never knew about her grandmother’s early ambitions until long after her death in 1967.

“I wish I could talk to her now and tell her, ‘Grandma, I got to do what you couldn’t.’”

Like family

Chavez operates a family practice in the truest sense of the word, according to current and former medical assistants, treating patients and staff alike as members of the family. As office manager, her husband is a key part of the team, filling in where needed and sharing his financial wizardry with the Flyers. The couple hosts an annual Christmas party at their 25-acre farm in Trotwood, Ohio, that doubles as a reunion for current and former staffers.

“She often treats many patients from the same family, even if there is a new baby,” said Michael, now a physician assistant for a Columbus hospital. “And she treats her office staff like family.”

That caring environment helped Michael navigate the pain of losing her father during her senior year at UD. She decided to take a gap year before pursuing her studies so she and her mother could take the time they needed to heal.

“It was meant to be that I was working there during that time,” she said. “Dr. Chavez shared with me about losing her dad at a young age. She was a safe person to talk to, and everyone in the office was very supportive.”

Similarly, Ogburn has found the office a comforting space after the recent loss of the beloved grandfather she called “Pops.”

“Doc is a great teacher and mentor, and she has created a climate and an environment where I can be myself and not feel stupid asking questions.”

“I have become friends with the other MAs, and it has become an interactive, collaborative community,” she said. 

Another current staffer, Eli Galyon ’25, lost his father to cancer at age 6. He remembers the kindness of the nurses and doctors who escorted him to the stuffed animal cart; he decided to become a doctor to help patients and families facing uncertain times.

Khadija Fatima ’25 wasn’t sure she still wanted to pursue a career in medicine when she decided to work for Chavez after graduating. She had seen too many doctors who showed disrespect for her Muslim faith and culture. “After working in this office, I am reminded what health care is for me,” she said. “It’s not just straight medicine and science, but so much about the personal experience.”  

Chavez respected Fatima’s Muslim traditions, such as wearing a hijab and reserving time for daily prayers, and their relationship has blossomed into an ongoing intercultural and interfaith dialogue. “Doc is so connected to her faith and it is a driving force in her life, and the same is true for me,” Fatima said.

Through these conversations, Fatima realized she could make connections with patients who don’t share the same beliefs. A simple “I will be praying for you,” or, “I am thinking of you,” for instance, can go a long way toward building trust and rapport.

“People just want to be heard and to be understood,” she said. “Once you understand where the other person is coming from, it makes the environment so much more comfortable and productive.”

The three current medical assistants are finding their gap year invaluable in many ways, from helping them choose a specialty to preparing them for the Medical College Admission Test and for medical school.

“I wouldn’t trade this gap year for anything,” Galyon said. “There is the day-to-day learning, the incredible information that sticks in the brain. I keep thinking how much I will use all of this knowledge in medical school. And it’s such an affirmation that I’m on the right track in pursuing a career in medicine.”

The learning is hardly one-sided. During their office experience, the students learn the basics of common
conditions seen in a family practice and the medications used to treat them. The assistants teach Chavez about contemporary life as a premed student, how the MCAT has changed and the courses taught in college that weren’t offered in her day. 

They teach her about Taylor Swift; she introduces them to Simon and Garfunkel.

A third-year medical student is usually in rotation at Carillon Family Practice, creating yet another learning opportunity for her medical assistants. They in turn teach the medical students how to perform clinical tasks. “It’s a wonderful dynamic,” Chavez said.

This medical assistant model of care has proven so successful that other local physicians have followed her lead. Jeanne and Clem Kirkland have hired UD graduates at the Dayton-area Kirkland Family Practice they founded in 1981. They said hiring medical assistants is particularly beneficial for the dwindling number of independent practices that aren’t owned by a hospital network.

“Our students get to see how a practice runs, and our patients really enjoy having the young people in the office,” Jeanne Kirkland said. 

Chavez has inspired some of her former medical assistants to become family physicians, including Minh Ho ’19 and Max Shafer ’20, both second-year family medicine residents at Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek, Ohio.

Ho said Chavez imparted the importance of being genuine and attentive to patients. 

“Anyone who has the opportunity to observe Doc in action will recognize that her bedside manner is a natural extension of her personality, and it immediately puts patients at ease,” she said. “That is a talent and a gift.”

Chavez greets each patient with a warm, “Oh, hi! How are you?” as if meeting an old friend.

She takes time to learn about each person — not just the ailment. Shafer has seen this in the four generations of his family who Chavez has cared for. “I am very proud to have followed her example in becoming a family doctor,” Shafer said.

“No matter how many specialists they see, they still identify you as their doctor, that most trusted person.”

No matter where they end up practicing, or what specialty they pursue, these young medical professionals share the sentiment of Fatima: “When we become doctors, Dr. Chavez is the role model of how we want to carry ourselves and how we want to be seen by our patients.”

While reflecting on her career, Chavez smiles wryly at the realization that the Latin root for doctor is “docere,” meaning “to teach.” Perhaps she didn’t stray as far from the path of her beloved father as she once imagined.

“I grew up in a family of educators, and I thought I had chosen something different,” she said. “But it turns out I have been teaching my entire career.”

Mary McCarty is a longtime Dayton-area journalist and former reporter and columnist for the Dayton Daily News.

Photography by Sylvia Stahl '18.

A version of this article appears in print in the Spring 2026 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 32. EXPLORE THE ISSUE — MORE ONLINE