Aug/Sept 2020 On the Minds of Moms

Steve Smedshammer

RAD DAD

Age: 36, Fargo, N.D.

From piercing to pediatrics

Fargo native takes less-than-traditional path toward medical career

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By Tracy Briggs

omething remarkable happened early on in Dr. Steve Smedshammer’s pediatric rotation in the

Twin Cities when he met with a woman and her autistic teenage son and began asking questions.

“I asked, ‘before I even talk to your son, what are his triggers? Can he be touched? Can I do a physical exam? If he allows me to listen to his heart and lungs, will the cold metal be a trigger?’ ” Smedshammer says.

He continued asking whether the boy was bothered by loud sounds and if he should turn the lights down in the exam room.

“She started crying,” Smedshammer says. “She said in all of the years of doctoring for him, no one ever asked that.”

Even early in his career, Smedshammer seems to grasp that bedside manner is as important as medical knowledge. Caring for others seems like something he was born and destined to do. But his road to residency was far from smooth and straight. It was full of detours, a few potholes and even a real-life “Wheel of Fortune.” But the tale of his journey should be required reading for any

“I had a phenomenal childhood,” Smedshammer recalls. “My parents were remarkable people.”

At Fargo’s Shanley High School, he was interested in technology and figured after graduation in 2002, he’d pursue a degree in computer science at North Dakota State University. That summer he got into the subculture of music.

“I’m a kid of the '80s. I was raised on Nirvana, Soundgarden, those kinds of ‘90s grunge bands,” he says. “I was 18, it was my first taste of freedom. I got a tattoo and I was all rebellious.”

He even took on an apprenticeship doing piercings at a tattoo shop in Fargo. Once school started, he found his entry-level college computer classes less than challenging. He says he became “disenchanted” after about a month and decided to quit school. When he told his parents they said ‘okay’ but he was 18 and he should move out of the house.

“Without any argument or fanfare, I packed my bags and moved out without a game plan as to what I was going to do,” he says.

their education and career path is headed.

He says he wasn’t really scared about the uncertainty because he’s always had confidence in himself to figure things out.

A great start, a “rebellious” turn

The ‘couch circuit’

Smedshammer was born and raised just north

For the next year and a half he lived on tips from his unpaid apprenticeship and relied upon the

student feeling pressured to know exactly where

of Fargo to a mom with a master’s degree in 34

nursing and a Master Sergeant dad. He had two older half-siblings and one younger sister.

ON THE MINDS OF MOMS | AUGUST • SEPTEMBER 2020