{"id":532,"date":"2025-11-13T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/?p=532"},"modified":"2025-11-13T08:00:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:00:19","slug":"love-medicine-a-story-born-at-the-w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/features\/love-medicine-a-story-born-at-the-w\/","title":{"rendered":"Love & Medicine: A Story Born at The W"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Erica<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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It has been said that memories are made in fleeting moments that we don\u2019t even realize at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Dr. Jared Mullins (\u201913) and Dr. Erica Regl Mullins (\u201915), that moment came during freshmen orientation in 2011 at Mississippi University for Women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was helping as an orientation leader (student volunteer) that day,\u201d Jared said. \u201cI was a junior, and she was a freshman. She happened to be in my orientation group.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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As part of orientation, there was a group tour of the Baptist Student Union and Wesley Foundation, which allowed the pair to get to know each other a bit better. The two bonded over strawberry shortcake, and a friendship was born that would blossom into much more, though neither of them knew it at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe got to chat a bit, but we were just friends,\u201d Erica said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two eventually went out after Jared won a date from an Oktoberfest raffle supporting breast cancer awareness. They went to dinner followed by a stop at the Callaway Hall haunted house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But their paths were taking them different directions\u2014or so they thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jared was a biology major with a clear idea of his future: to be a cardiologist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father, a graduate of The W\u2019s baccalaureate nursing program, had died of a stroke when Jared was just 16 years old. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cCardiovascular disease in general was something that always stood out to me, and was a bridge into medicine,\u201d Jared said. \u201cI just gravitated to it as a specialty to help treat people who have cardiovascular disease and to help prevent it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biology was his way into the field, and what better place than his father\u2019s alma mater? He knew he was bound for medical school after that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erica, however, was a kinesiology and exercise science major. Coincidentally, she too had a familial reason to pursue her passion\u2014though her reasoning was ultimately twofold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was younger, my aunt had a few very interesting injuries,\u201d she said. \u201cShe always spoke highly of how physical therapy brought her through a very difficult time in her life that was much more than an injury, but also, unfortunately, the loss of her first child. Her physical therapist helped her with the emotional part too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other influence for Erica came via growing up near a military base in a post 9-11 America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of my friends and their parents were involved in the Air Force, and so growing up, there was a lot of talk of Iraq and 9-11 and a lot of my friends wound up going into some branch of the military,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew that wasn’t for me, but I also knew that I wanted to give back in some way. And I did notice some of my friends\u2019 parents coming back with injuries, and as I got older, my friends themselves coming back with injuries. I was like, \u2018This is how I can give back. This is something I can do.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as why she chose The W, Erica also had family connections. Her mother graduated from The W\u2019s education program. Her father, years after Erica herself had already graduated, decided to further his education and went back to school at The W as well. Before that, however, Erica attended the Mississippi Governor\u2019s School on The W\u2019s campus, as well as the various summer leadership camps and the biology camps at the Plymouth Bluff Environmental Center. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cA common joke in our family is that we\u2019re a bunch of W girls,\u201d Erica said with a laugh. \u201cThere are a lot of W diplomas at my parents\u2019 house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two fell out of touch once Jared graduated and set his sights on medical school. He was accepted into William Carey University in Hattiesburg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unbeknownst to either of them, they would both attend the university. This twist of fate would spark a relationship that has withstood the test of time. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Copyright Joann Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cShe came to William Carey for physical therapy school and the doctoral programs there are in the same building sometimes,\u201d said Jared. \u201cWe reconnected, and I asked her out again. The timing seemed a little better, and we hit it off and started dating seriously and then got engaged two years later.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pair now have an 18-month-old son, Hayden Mullins, who is their pride and joy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two Mississippians have since traveled all over the country as Jared continues his training. The trek has included stops in Hattiesburg; Corinth; Augusta, Georgia, where Hayden was born, and now Chicago, where he is in an interventional and structural cardiology fellowship at Loyola University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His ultimate goal, being a structural cardiologist, will require 16 total years of school from the bachelor program to the final fellowship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erica received her doctorate of physical therapy, which involved three years of postgraduate studies. During her time as a physical therapist in training, she served in hospitals, home health services and clinics. However, the experience that stands out the most to her is when she traveled to Jamaica to help treat stroke patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a wonderful opportunity to see a whole other perspective,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel like we take for granted the health opportunities that we have here in America.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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Drs. Erica and Jared Mullins walk the bridge the couple were married on with their son, Hayden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

She currently works for Upstream Rehabilitation, which is a national company, under their Benchmark brand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout their post graduate studies, the two never forgot where they formed the base for their educational prowess, The W. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou might think that at a small college you\u2019re not really going to broaden your horizons, but there\u2019s so many opportunities like the Disney program and other study abroad opportunities, there\u2019s plenty to really make you a whole individual,\u201d Erica said. \u201cThere\u2019s better community. You don\u2019t get lost in the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been said that memories are made in fleeting moments that we don\u2019t even realize at the time. For Dr. Jared Mullins (\u201913) and Dr. Erica Regl Mullins (\u201915), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-fall-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}