In honor of Veterans Day, we are sharing stories of our amazing doctors who have served as members of the U.S. military. These veterans now dedicate their time to treating our patients at Columbia Skin Clinic. We thank them for their service and appreciate everything they do for our patients every day.
Dr. Allison Cashman says that her military experience changed her a lot as a person. “It opened my eyes to the challenges faced in other countries, and I developed enormous respect for our military personnel and their families,” she said. “I also realized we live in an amazing country with more resources and capabilities than most people can fathom.”
She says her favorite aspect of service was the people, and that carries over into her work here at Columbia Skin Clinic. According to Dr. Cashman, her military experience has helped shape her private practice: “It made me a more effective communicator and placed me in difficult situations that often lead to having to find answers and find solutions to complex problems. Medicine is the most comprehensive and complex field in helping individuals, and no patient is the same, so one often has to find new ways to tackle the challenges each of us human beings face daily.”
Dr. Cashman decided to escape the frigid Wisconsin winters and to explore the world. She applied and in four years, graduated from the United States Naval Academy and chose to serve in the United States Marine Corps, mainly because of the incredible people she met and the challenges they face.
Working many roles during her military career, Dr. Cashman served as a company commander, series commander, Marine liaison officer, training officer, platoon commander and finished out her career as a captain. One of her biggest challenges during this time was being a young 23-year-old officer and leading men and women twice her age. She says she quickly learned that serving side by side and listening is the best tool anyone can develop and utilize in life. She was stationed in Hawaii, Virginia, Washington D.C. and Parris Island, SC, and deployed to South Korea for eight months.
Dr. Cashman loves the fact that Columbia Skin Clinic has a strong military presence, with individuals from the Army, Air Force and Marines. They are dedicated to helping patients and maintaining quality of care. “We are about people and their health and don’t compromise our values, a quality that seems to be harder to find in all aspects of life,” she says. The advice she gives to doctors who are considering joining the military is to do it, just do it!
Dr. Allison Cashman combines her love of helping people and her passion for dermatology every day at Columbia Skin Clinic. She sees patients in the Irmo offices in South Carolina. Contact us today to make an appointment with Dr. Cashman.
