Meet Dr. Ryan Gibney: Jack of All Trades

By Kaveri Curlin, UCI School of Medicine

Dr. Ryan Gibney always knew that he wanted to be a doctor, even if it meant completing medical school on his own timeline. After graduating from college, Dr. Gibney decided to turn his lifelong passion for music into a career. He spent five years working as a professional musician before transitioning into the restaurant industry. Dr. Gibney says that his hospitality experience helped prepare him for life as a future emergency medicine physician.

"There's a lot of parallels between medicine and restaurant industry […], they're both forward facing, public, [and] need interacting with people of all sorts. That was the only thing that prepared me very well for the customer service aspect of medicine, emergency medicine, especially because often, there's long waits and stretched resources, and people kind of can get frustrated and having that customer service background really makes you able to communicate clearly what they should expect. So, I think there's a lot to be gained from a career outside of medicine that interacts with the public."

Other than sharpening Dr. Gibney’s ability to triage, sometimes volatile, situations, taking time between college and medical school helped him crystallized his reasons for wanting to be a doctor and pursue medicine. When he went back to school, he knew it was because of internal motivation rather than following a pre-determined path.

It was also clear early on in his UCISOM medical school journey that emergency medicine may be a good specialty choice.

"I will never forget. We used to do these one-on-one chats, like specialty speed dating, and I walked in and one of the plastic surgeons looked at me and says ‘you're an ER doc.’ I kind of laughed. I was like, ‘Well, [it’s] definitely on the radar, but so is plastic surgery.’ So, it, from the first year of med school, caught my eye."

These days Dr. Gibney enjoys working with the rich diversity of patients that UC Irvine Health serves in its ER department. After residency (also at UCI), Dr. Gibney stayed on for an extra year as an UCI Emergency Department Administrative Fellow. The fellowship was a distinct opportunity to learn how to operationally manage an emergency department. Dr. Gibney looks forward to using his big-picture problem solving knowledge to continue to improve clinical acumen and patient outcomes.

While he may have exchanged his restaurant apron for a white coat, music and food are still an important part of Dr. Gibney’s life. He still tries to play his guitar whenever he can and loves to host elaborate dinners for friends and family. Most importantly, he enjoys spending as much time as possible with his wife and daughter.

Ultimately, Dr. Gibney chose emergency medicine because of the combination of “thinking and doing” and work-life balance the specialty offers.

"With regard to emergency medicine, it's a very fast paced, decision-oriented specialty, that involves both thinking and doing in real time, which is what I really loved about it. The fact that I was making the decision gathering the data, doing the intervention during the procedure, all in real time and seeing the outcomes of what I was doing was very satisfying to me. Again, it's very similar to being the kitchen you have like ultimate control, and you get to kind of dictate the process."