Pebbles Shanley, MD
Associate Director of Academic Affairs

Pebbles Shanley, MD

Medical School: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Residency: Alaska Family Medicine Residency
Medical Interests: Refugee health, LGBTQ healthcare addiction medicine, women’s health, social medicine
Personal Interests: I love to quilt, hike or walk with my family, and watch scary movies when I can!

What is the best thing about teaching at AKFMR?

I love working with junior colleagues who come in fresh and excited to learn and then develop and evolve to become incredible and truly inspiring physicians. I look at the types of physicians that graduate from our program, often doing impossible things in austere environments with such knowledge and empathy for the patients they serve, and I couldn’t be any prouder.

How did you end up in Alaska?

Growing up in Texas, I was drawn to the idea of rural medicine and being training for full-scope practice. In medical school I was then drawn to service of the urban underserved community in San Antonio and started processing social determinants of health issues and their impacts. Through a sense of adventure (bestowed on me by my motorcycle-riding family) and a desire to always see Alaska, I applied, interviewed and matched to this program.

I know that this program had both unparalleled rural training and was also based out of Anchorage, serving an underserved community, which was a perfect fit for my residency training and the world-class recreation and landscape was imperative for my wellness and family. After training, I stayed on as a Faculty member, to continue the mission of the program to promote residents to serve Alaskan Native/American Indians, the medically underserved, and rural communities. As a Prairie-Band Potawatomi descendent, the mission is particularly important as it improves care and diversity in medicine, and provides visibility to health disparities for these communities.