Highlighting Homeschooling

Bethany M. Gardiner, M.D. is a seasoned homeschooling mother with over a decade of experience in homeschooling her own children and teaching co-op classes for other homeschoolers. A National Merit Scholar who was accepted into the Honors Program at the University of Florida, she graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelor’s of Arts in Statistics. Following graduation, she attended medical school at the University of Florida, graduating with honors in 1994. After completing medical school, Dr. Gardiner did her internship and residency at the University of Florida’s Urban Campus, where she received the Resident Student Teacher Award. Upon completion of residency, she joined Interlachen Pediatrics in Orlando, FL. She is a board certi- fied pediatrician and an internationally board certified lactation consultant. In addition to her homeschooling activities, Dr. Gardiner is very involved in vol- unteer work, including serving as a leader of her daughter’s Girl Scout troop for the past seven years and a merit badge counselor for her son’s Boy Scout troop. She also volunteered in the post Hurricane Katrina relief effort helping run the children’s unit of a field hospital in Louisiana and working at a Red Cross shelter. Currently Dr. Gardiner lives in Utah, where she enjoys hiking, reading, needle- work, and traveling, and is married to the same man she met as a freshman in college twenty-five years ago.