Meet Jen Arnold of TLC's 'The Little Couple'

Today's cuppa: strawberry iced tea

Here's my syndicated profile this week of one of reality TV's most charming and accomplished stars:

Checking in With Jen Arnold

By Kate O'Hare @Zap2it

Becoming a TV star was probably never a consideration for Jennifer Arnold, who has been quite busy with becoming a pediatrician and neonatologist.

Along the way, she also met and married New York businessman Bill Klein. And she did all of the above while being well under 4 feet tall, as is her husband (who is slightly taller than Arnold).

After being featured in a special on TLC called "Little People: Just Married," Arnold and Klein are the stars of their own TLC reality series, "The Little Couple," which premiered in late May and airs its first-season finale -- as of this writing, no decision had been made on renewal -- on Tuesday, July 21.

Oh, and while the series was going on, Arnold got a new job, which meant that she and Klein had to relocate to Houston.

"Clearly medicine is still my primary focus," Arnold says, "but I do feel like I have a third job now that takes up a lot of my free time that I might have otherwise had, for filming, but thankfully it's fun, so it makes it worthwhile."

Arnold and Klein have always attracted attention when they've gone out together, but now it's changed a bit.

"The response we've gotten from people is overall very positive," Arnold says. "Most time people are very appropriate, but there are definitely people that aren't always so appropriate, so this kind of attention is actually refreshing.

"It's very positive. People already know, 'Oh, there's the little-person doctor.' "

As to what doing a TV show has taught her, Arnold says, "What it means to be a positive role model. In the short amount of time our show has been airing, it's amazing how many people watch the show and really pay attention to the details of it.

"You really want to make sure that it's a positive show."

Birthplace: St. Petersburg, Fla., on March 12, making her a Pisces.

School cred: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (graduated 2000); pediatrics residency at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh (completed 2003); neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC Health System (completed 2007)

Current positions: Assistant professor of pediatrics, division of perinatal-neonatal at Baylor (Texas) College of Medicine; neonatologist and medical director of the pediatric simulation center at Texas Children's Newborn Center; faculty, SUNY at Stony Brook (N.Y.) Health Sciences Center

Association cred: Member, American Academy of Pediatrics, Academic Pediatric Association, Society for Simulation in Healthcare

As for a few of her favorite things:

Favorite book: "Coming from Florida, she was a Florida writer: 'Their Eyes Were Watching God,' by Zora Neale Hurston. It's just a very real book. It's a great story about a young girl and all the struggles that she went through. It was written in Florida, so it had a lot of personal attributes."

Favorite music: "I love reggae a ton. Who doesn't love Bob Marley, No. 1? I've loved 10,000 Maniacs since I was in the ninth grade. There are kinds of music that Bill and I both enjoy. The Fray is one band that we like together. Bill tends to like the hard, old-school rock, but I don't necessarily care for it. Then he doesn't tend to like 10,000 Maniacs and some of the alternative music that I do."

Favorite movies: "Oh, I love a good chick flick, I'll just be quite honest: I don't go to the movies very often, and when I go, I just want to relax. I want to decompress; I want to forget about reality. Something may be cheesy, but if it makes you feel good, that's a good movie. I like 'You've Got Mail,' I could watch that movie over and over again -- and 'Sleepless in Seattle.' I'm a geek. I admit it."