Local Cardiologist has a Heart for San Angelo

When Samia Benslimane moved from her hometown of El Paso to San Antonio to study, she had a unique plan. A math major and the daughter of two teachers, Benslimane wanted to become both an architect and an architecture professor. It wasn’t until the middle to end of her college career that she began to focus on a completely different field entirely, spurred by the hours of volunteer work she was putting in.

“In college, I decided to start volunteering—I wanted to do something else with my time—so volunteering at the hospital was the easiest thing to do, an that’s when I actually saw what doctors do, what nurses do and the whole medical field,” she said. “Once I volunteered it kind of sealed the deal for me. I was like , ‘ok, this is actually a good thing.’ You leave the end of each day having helped people. It wasn’t until I started volunteering that I decided to do medicine.”

Benslimane describes herself as a ‘late bloomer’, noting that most doctors have chosen their paths by high school and have begun working toward their careers at a young age. After meeting her husband at the University of Texas at San Antonio, she narrowed her scope and decided to focus on cardiology.

“He (her husband) has a congenital heart defect, and once I was reading about that and the fact that it’s hereditary and can affect my children, I started looking more into cardiology,” Dr. Benslimane said. As she began to consider the specialization, she began to realize that there was a lot of math involved in cardiology, and that a large portion of the work is preventative medicine and education, she said.

Cardiology, she said, was the combination of architecture, math and education she had been seeking.

“I’m very happy. It’s everything I thought it would be. It’s just really fulfilling, always changing, growing. We get new medicines all the time, then we develop new techniques in the cath lab all the time,” Benslimane said. “People used to have to have open-heart surgery to fix blocked arteries, now they can put in a stint through a little IV in their arm and remove them the next day. Even now, the newest thing, they can actually replace the valves through a little IV in your leg. That’s still up-and-coming, it’s still mostly research, but instead of having open-heart surgery for that now, they can just do a little IV in your leg,” she said.

On an average day, Dr. Benslimane spends the majority of her day in the clinic. Her shift starts around 7:30 a.m., when she goes to visit each of her patients. By 9:00 a.m., she starts her day in the clinic, which runs till about 3:00 p.m. Between patients, Dr. Benslimane says she reads studies to keep abreast of new developments. She used to spend time in the cath lab during the day as well, but is expecting a baby girl in April and cannot be near radiation.

By 4:00 p.m., the doctor’s day is done and she returns home to spend time with her family. Twice a month she visits Sweetwater to perform tests and procedures so that patients don’t have to travel, and once a month she’s on call on the weekends, checking in new patients and checking on those of her partners. Although she enjoys the work in the cath lab, Benslimane is currently unsure as to whether she will return, but thinks for now that it is unlikely. “We want another child,” she said.

Dr. Benslimane has been working at Shannon Medical Center for three years now, however her initial idea when interviewing for the job had been completely different.

“Actually, I’d never heard of San Angelo when I was looking for a job, but I went to a review course in Dallas…and ended up sitting next to Charles Marsh, who’s our director…here. He was just talking to me—I was about to finish training, I was looking for a job, and I knew I didn’t want a big city, I wanted a smaller kind of place for a quieter life. He said, ‘Well, you should come look at us in San Angelo. We’re not really looking to hire, but it will give you a look at what a smaller town is like,’” she said.

Having been invited to come see the town and the hospital, Benslimane and her husband made the trip to San Angelo and fell in love with the city, she said, adding that the city isn’t too small or too big.

“The medicine here that is practiced is top notch,” Benslimane said. “I came from San Antonio, I’m well trained—university trained—I come in here and they practice academic medicine, which is pretty impressive for a private practice. No one cuts corners, they’re up-to-date with their guidelines, they’re thorough, detail-oriented, have good medical practices, and if you don’t practice good medicine, you’re called out on it.”

For her, the biggest fear of entering private practice was that her work would become sloppy and that the ethics would change. Benslimane said none of that was true when she joined the Shannon team.

“I’m very proud to be part of this company, because as a company they’re very patient oriented…for me as a doctor, that’s number one,” she said. “From a physician’s standpoint, whenever I have suggestions…they listen to their doctors.”

After three years in San Angelo and at Shannon Medical Center, Dr. Benslimane says she and her family are here to stay.  “We’re here for the long run,” she said. “We’re so happy here. My nurse is amazing, so if I leave, I’d have to take her with me,” she teased. “We set up a really good life here in only three years and just got comfortable really quick, so we’re not going anywhere.”