Ever since Samantha Price was a four-year-old nursery school student she wanted to be a doctor.

At every opportunity she dressed up in a uniform complete with a white coat, medical kit, and a stethoscope.

?I told my parents at that age I wanted to go to nurses school, but I knew I always wanted to be a doctor,? she said.

?My dad used to run a pharmacy and I used to be fascinated by all the drugs he had in the pharmacy.?

Now, more than 20 years later, a medical degree from the University of Aberdeen hangs on the wall of her new Point Finger Road office.

Dr. Price, 28, is Bermudian and one of the Island?s newest members of the medical community.

She set up her general practice at Island Health Services a few weeks ago with Dr. Wilson, Dr. Martin and Dr. Boonstra.

As soon you enter her office you are met with a big smile, a bowl of jellybeans and a direct, no-nonsense approach.

Dr. Price sees herself as a progressive doctor, who is just as comfortable discussing smoking and sexuality with her younger patients as she is making a diagnosis.

?If you go to a doctor?s office and have someone sitting at the desk too busy writing stuff down rather than looking in your face and making you smile, you?re going to sit there with your arms crossed and not feel comfortable. If I can make you really comfortable then I can treat you better,? she said.

She is also a keen advocate of good eating and regular exercise, and is currently trying out the South Beach diet herself, which she said had been effective so far.

She regularly goes to the gym and also does yoga at home.

?I used to be bad and eat whatever I wanted, but now I?m making a conscious effort to eat well. I?m an everything in moderation person.?

Her father, Nigel Price, ran the Clarendon pharmacy, and Dr. Price spent her summers on the Island helping out with sales and in the warehouse.

She left Bermuda High School at the age of ten to attend the Badminton School in the United Kingdom, before attending the University of Aberdeen, an old Scottish university with a reputation for its excellent medical programme.

In high school, Dr. Price said she loved sciences, and during her late teens she concentrated on chemistry, physics and biology.

The girls in her school were encouraged to challenge the stereotype that boys were better at technical subjects, she said.

?We were told you can do as well as anyone else can, you just need to prove it to the world,? she said.

Several years later, Dr. Price found herself in the classroom with Vicks vapour rub over her face, well on her way to realising her dream of becoming a doctor.

The Vicks, if you?re wondering, is used by medical students as the menthol in the ointment covers the stench of the cadavers they are assigned to dissect.

?That was the doozy, you learn all the tricks,? Dr. Price said. ?We got told right off not to play with them, these are people who gave their bodies to science so don?t disrespect them.?

In the United Kingdom doctors train differently than in North America and do not take on pre-medical training.

Doctors also graduate with a combined Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery degree.

While Dr. Price was committed to her dream, it did not come easily.

Early wake up calls in medical school came in the form of exams that she failed in the first and second year, but passed again during the re-sit.

While medical students generally tend to be high achievers who rank in the top five percent of their high school classes, more than half do not make it through medical school.

But hard work and dedication paid off for Dr. Price.

She graduated as a doctor at the age of 23 in 1999 and moved to New Zealand to get some work experience as a resident ? or house officer, as they refer to residencies in Commonwealth countries.

In New Zealand, she became interested in pain control as her topic of study, after falling off the ledge of a balcony and breaking her pelvis, back and hand.

?There?s something about being in so much pain that makes you realise what pain is. After that it was funny when I first started going back to work, because I was trying to give people with the flu painkillers. I think people often tolerate far too much pain when they don?t have to,? she said.

Two years ago, Dr. Price returned to the Island to do a 15-month medical residency at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital before making the move to setting up her own practice.

She is single and lives with her 15-pound cat, Zeus. Patients are seeking out her services in droves ? including many old friends and acquaintances.

?A lot of them don?t want to come to me for their gynaecological exams, which is fine, because I don?t want to push a patient into anything they?re uncomfortable with. I do have patients who I grew up with ? what I worry about is if they can make the disassociation between friend Sam and Dr. Sam?.

These are the people who provided their support and encouragement during the tough final years of medical school.

?They?re the ones who yell ?doc? and wave across the street when they see me which is kind of nice. After 17 years of going around the world, I?m finally here.?