Dr. Buchanan earned her undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston, where she graduated as the Top Honor Graduate, summa cum laude. She earned her M.D. degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and completed a residency in pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Buchanan started her pediatric career as a community pediatrician in Oxford, Miss. and then served as a neonatal hospitalist at Duke University Medical Center. She subsequently moved to Providence, R.I., where she was the Director of Quality for Pediatrics at Hasbro Children's Hospital, an attending pediatric hospitalist, and the Associate Director of Undergraduate Medical Education in Pediatrics at Brown Medical School. Dr. Buchanan joined Prisma Health–Upstate, formerly Greenville Health System, in 2008. She served as the Vice Chair of Quality for the Department of Pediatrics for five years and also served as the Pediatric Clerkship Director and Pediatric Acting Internship Director.
Dr. Buchanan has been actively involved in medical student education since 2006. She was a member of the LCME Institutional Self Study Task Force Faculty Subcommittee for preliminary accreditation and Vice Chair for the Educational Programs LCME Self-Study for provisional accreditation. She currently serves as Chair of the M3/M4 Subcommittee. On a national level, Dr. Buchanan is an active member of the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics, where she co-authored the national pediatric sub-internship curriculum and served as both an author and editor for the pediatric sub-internship learning activities. She is the UofSC School of Medicine Greenville representative for the AAMC Group on Women in Medicine and Science. Dr. Buchanan has led multiple national workshops on various topics including professionalism, quality and safety, assessment in integrated curricula, survey design, instrument validity and clinical reasoning.
In her clinical role, Dr. Buchanan attends on the pediatric hospitalist teaching service at the Prisma Health Children's Hospital. She has a special interest in pediatric asthma and leads a grant-funded, community collaborative to improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with asthma in Greenville County. In addition to striving to provide the highest quality care for children and their families, Dr. Buchanan enjoys teaching and mentoring medical students and residents. In June of 2012, she received the Paul V. Catalana Exemplary Character Award, given by the graduating residency class to a caregiver who exemplifies the qualities of honest, fairness, compassion, altruism and leadership by example. In 2013, she received the Most Outstanding Clinical Professor Award from the charter class of the medical school.