space where you can have a voice and represent a different community that sometimes is disenfranchised and not heard. And that some of the decisions aren’t made with them in consideration. So that feels very fulfilling. But I mean, it can be exhausting being in a space where you’re sometimes the only female or the only person of color. But I think with it comes much responsibility knowing that it is a privilege and that there are plenty of women and girls who would give almost anything to be able to be a Black female doctor.
So I think it’s an honor. I tell the nurses all the time it’s an honor and a privilege to care for people. And I love my job. It’s a mantra that some days it’s more trying to refocus myself. Still, I tell them I truly do mean it, and I say it even when I’m not trying to refocus myself. When we keep that at the forethought of the mind, all the exhaustion that comes with trying to convince people that certain issues matter, it kind of fades to the wayside, and it just gives me more strength to keep going, you know?
Q: Do you ever feel like you struggle with proving to people you know what you’re doing and sometimes them not taking you seriously enough? Have you dealt with a lot of that? Or with everything that you did to prepare to be here, do you feel like it didn’t matter as much?
A: No, for sure. I feel like some days are a struggle. I feel that all of the failures, the stumbling blocks, the pressure, and how hard I had to work to get here helped make me stronger in dealing with certain situations. I basically just focus on how it is humbling. It’s humbling to be in this spot. And I try to ensure that even if someone is approaching me in a manner that is not as warm as I would like, you know, it’s not always necessarily malicious and intense; it’s sometimes just secondary to bias or experience. I would just give you an example, and maybe that’ll make sense. I walked into a room with my white coat with my name, and the patient was like, oh, okay, someone’s here to change the garbage.
That took me back a little bit, and I was like, okay, I don’t mind changing your garbage if you need me to, but I am the doctor, and I’m here to take care of you. You know? So it was; I don’t think he meant it badly or maliciously. I think it was just a bias that, seeing me in that space, he was not accustomed to having a Black female walk in as a doctor. So it’s just I have to take a deep breath and take a moment and realize that I still have to be professional and ensure my heart is still in a good place. I know that my intention and job is to care for this person regardless. But sometimes it is; it’s challenging, and you have to refocus yourself. I definitely think being in medical school is not easy. Residency is not easy. So that prepares you for situations like this. You know, when you have to just think through your response to certain difficult situations. We are thankfully credentialed and know what we’re doing. So it makes it not as daunting, I guess, as it seems.
Q: I also saw that you are a Leading Emergency Physician. So what was the journey to becoming that?
A: So that was definitely a journey. I took the scenic route because I did undergrad. I did the university of Florida and studied Spanish. My initial intention was to go straight to medical school. However, I did not study properly for the MCAT the first time. I was very accustomed to just math and science always coming very easy. Like even AP classes, things I didn’t have to study as much, I would just review them and do really well. So I took that same approach to the MCAT for the first time. Did not do well at all. So I had to take a step back, regroup, and refocus. Then I realized I actually really needed a study course to teach me how to learn to take this test.
It doesn’t necessarily translate into how much medical, how much scientific and mathematical knowledge you have. You have to learn that test-taking skill, which I don’t think I had because I had done so well without acquiring it over the years. So I retook the MCAT while I was doing grad school. I was already planning on getting a master’s anyway. Still, now I figured I’d just get a master’s before medical school instead of during medical school, which many people do as well.
So I studied for the MCAT and took a prince interview course that helped me do amazingly well compared to what I did before. So with that score increase, that wasn’t super common to have that much of a jump into different scores. That was a determining factor in helping me get a scholarship at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western. And also, the fact that I had my master’s in public health and I had a lot of research experience, those things kind of helped me get that in. That was very humbling because I was not used to failing.
The road to medical school was extremely humbling because of that failure. I was never really like a cocky kind of conceited person. However, it still took me down a couple of pegs to realize that it’s not a guarantee that you will get into medical school or do well on an MCAT. That was a very hard thing I had to do, especially making that detour to grad school before going to medical school. But once I got there, it was pretty awe-inspiring, just seeing how the doctors make such a difference in patients’ lives.
I had quite a few amazing mentors because I started out wanting to do trauma surgery, and I was going to do the general surgery route. I did a lot of things and shadowed many general surgeons; I created a general surgery interest group through the Cleveland Clinic, and we even had a pager where we would get paged when a transplant was happening. So as a first and second-year, third-year medical student, you can go with a transplant team to harvest organs and bring ’em back and do that. It was amazing to see how many lives were saved just by people dedicating their lives to education and learning how to fix these medical problems. I thankfully never got that God complex you get when you see you have that influence. Still, it is amazing that humans have been given the ability to help each other dramatically through surgery, medicines, and different procedures.
And then, towards the end of that journey when I became a doctor, I think it’s just been unreal. It just really doesn’t seem real. Even my medical school graduation, I’m like looking around. I can’t believe this is actually my life. Even today, I sometimes have to pinch myself, and it’s just to think about how I have achieved more than my wildest dreams through God’s grace. When I go do a shift, and I have a really good shift, it feels like second nature, the tasks that we have to do. I know how to intubate people, probably in my sleep. I can put you on a brain machine, do different procedures, things that we do that actually save lives, and help people because of great training and because I take very much pride in doing a good job. That’s what I love.
I love when people are sick, and I can make them not sick, or when they’re actively dying or dead, we can bring them back. Like, I love those moments. Not all everybody does, and I totally understand it because it’s probably not