Breaking Barriers: First Generation Students in Medicine

Breaking Barriers: First Generation Students in Medicine

“First generation” is a term that is used to describe a person who is the first in their family to break barriers, such as finishing high school, or attending college. This term tends to have the connotation of courage, success or even, groundbreaking. Any person who had a vision and set out to accomplish it, regardless of the outcome, is someone to be admired. What I find to be most exhilarating of all, is that I am seeing more and more first generation students than ever before, paving the way for future generations, showing the world that anyone is capable of achieving their dreams. Being a first generation student is becoming more and more common: What once seemed impossible, is now becoming more of a norm.Melissa shares her story about being a first generation student: For many years I would eat my dinner in front of the TV while watching surgery television shows. In high school I told my parents that I wanted to be a doctor. To which they replied, “How are you going to pay for that?”. While that sounds unsupportive, I have to explain a little more about my family. My parents were both intelligent and very hardworking. Dad dropped out of high school and later obtained a GED, and Mom finished high school. They both worked for the same grocery store chain until they retired: my dad as a produce man, and my mom as a deli clerk. Both parents saved as much of their money as they could. My older brother and I had everything we needed growing up, and sometimes even a little more.When my parents reacted to my desire to go to medical school, they were not intending to temper my enthusiasm. For them it was a very practical question. College, and certainly medical school, were not something they foresaw. My parents didn’t think about my brother and me going to college, because it just wasn’t something a lot of family members did. Because of that, my mom had acquired some savings bonds over the years, but never set up a college fund. To offset costs of college and graduate school, I lived at home and commuted to school. I always had a full class load and worked.Aside from the cost of higher education and minimal financial support, being a first-generation college, then graduate, then medical student carried more challenges with it. What I didn’t realize was that, by working so much I was missing out on critical volunteer and shadowing experiences that I would need before I applied to medical school. I did the best I could to work those things in, but I certainly didn’t have an impressive CV at the time.And for a while my academic record wasn’t particularly impressive. I am not sure whether this is attributable to being a first-generation student or not, but I did not study for the first two years of college, while I was taking all my premed classes. I never studied in high school and performed well academically. Naturally, I got to college and thought if it worked then, it would work now. It never occurred to me that I had to study. I have often reflected on that and thought how silly it was to not understand that college required studying; however, I was only on campus during classes which meant that I went home to a place where no one could tell me that what I was doing wasn’t a recipe for success. I always wanted to talk to my professors about how to do better, but I struggled with feeling like I was an imposter - not only because my family didn’t have a longstanding, or any, legacy at my college, but also because I lived at home which made me feel geographically isolated. It wasn’t until halfway through that I learned the value of studying. My grades improved quite a bit, but I couldn’t undo the mediocre grades I got in my premed classes.So I spent the next year proving I could be a doctor, by completing a one-year Master’s of Science in Biomedical Sciences. Upon graduation I took the MCAT (the standardized entrance exam required to matriculate) and applied to medical schools with good grades and extracurriculars, but a poor MCAT score. I didn’t get accepted, and I wouldn’t get accepted, until I took the MCAT two more times, one of which was a new version. I applied so many times that one of my undergraduate advisors quit writing letters of recommendation for me and encouraged me to think about a different career path. And all of those applications were expensive, which meant it was back to earning a paycheck as quickly as I could and sacrificing additional clinical or volunteer experiences.Starting medical school was also another challenge. Up until graduate school, I had never even met a doctor outside of clinics where I, or my family, were patients. I didn’t know any medical students either, so I really had no idea what medical school would be like until I started. It is one thing to hear about things like the cost of tuition, or what non-clinical versus clinical years would look like, but until you live those things or at least hear the experience of those who have, it’s hard to understand their significance. I took medical school one step at a time, and I am very grateful to my classmates who did understand this process and would take time to explain these things.In many ways, I am thankful for my experience. Despite the struggles, I learned how to continue to pursue my dreams. While it could have been much easier with a little help, everything has worked out. I know that there are many students out there that share similar stories. I highly encourage other first-generation students to find a mentor early. You deserve to be supported in your goals and you don’t have to work through the process alone.Ashley will now share hers:Successful. Resilient. Hardworking. Exceptional. Underdog! Underdog is a good word. These are words that come to mind when I think about first generation students. Coming from a family that never pursued an education higher than high school or a GED, not much was expected from me. Of course, my parents believed in my abilities to do ANYTHING I wanted, but there was never a push or shove in any direction. I did not have any guidance navigating the college application system, but I decided to pursue a higher education anyway, hoping it would inspire me and help me figure out what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life…...I honestly don’t know where my innate drive and tenacity came from, but once I started my higher education, I never looked back, especially once my passion came to light: MEDICINE.Today, I’m proud to call myself both a first generation college graduate and medical student. In just 5 short months, I will be a first generation physician. Mentally, this was an easy road for me to choose, as working hard and sacrifice was just “par for the course, and I believed that I was ready for that. But, in retrospect, this was not an easy road to endure, and sacrifice became a familiar foe of mine.As mentioned before, I chose to attend college because I thought it was the next best thing to do. My father and mother, a card dealer and aesthetician respectively, were the perfect model for both hard work and sacrifice, but they struggled with financial instability, which would unfortunately be a common theme in their life. In retrospect, I feel a lot of my innate drive and ambition came from fear: fear of not having a safety net to fall back on and of the possibility of struggling for the rest of my life like they have. It’s a lot easier to try and give up, when you have someone to catch you when you fall: I did not. To echo Melissa, being a first generation student comes with many challenges. For me, they included the unknown, lack of mentorship, failure, cost, sacrifice, time, just to name a few. I did not realize that my study habits were not up to par in college, until it was too late, and the outcome had already created obstacles ahead: I had to take more courses and work even harder to make up for my low GPA in comparison to others. Medical school is competitive, and my grades throughout my first two years of college were far from stellar. I had to learn how to do better and to enact it quickly, if I wanted to make it. Apart from the stressors that come with pursuing a dream like medicine, where you are told on a regular basis that it is an unrealistic dream to have, came the imposter syndrome: “Why would I make it? Do I even belong here?”I had many people urge me to consider a different path, as opposed to guide me in my current one; in retrospect, this is unacceptable, and I urge anyone with a passion to never give up. I never gave up, as the fire in me to pursue my dreams, was already ignited and spreading rapid like wildfire. I was not going to give up, but this meant, more sacrifice: less time visiting back home in Las Vegas, more days of the year spent studying than making memories with friends and family, and money that could be spent traveling the world, was spent on MCAT prep books and applications…....the road seemed endless, and there appeared to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually, all of my sleepless nights studying for finals on end, months of MCAT preparation, and spending a year away from home to obtain a Masters degree all to make myself a more competitive med school applicant, had all finally paid off. I had finally learned how to study the right way and ultimately figured out what it took to become accepted into medical school! What strikes me most about being a first generation student, is that I didn’t really have anyone to guide me on what steps I should have taken to be my most successful...my most competitive. I had to figure this out on my own, but it is doable. Seeking out mentors in university helped me tremendously, but the information will only get you as far as you take it: Hard work, resilience, confidence, tenacity and bravery, are all essential ingredients for that recipe for success. As much as I could take credit for “breaking barriers” in my family and setting the precedent that anyone can become anything if they put their mind to it, this would be disingenuous: I would not be this far without the love, support and belief from my family. My partner also played a big role in my success as well, both financially and emotionally. Believe it or not, having someone tell you that “you’re a sure bet”, even when you don’t believe it, is sometimes exactly what you need to keep on keeping on. I would not be where I am today without the help and support of those who listened to me every time I felt I wasn’t good enough, and reminded me that I was. To echo Melissa, you can be anything you put your mind to, never let anyone tell you otherwise. And if they do, let it drive you. To end, regardless of any amount of success a person may achieve, what I have learned along this journey, is that with any success, can come great sacrifice: Never forget what makes you happy and make that a priority as often as you can. There is a balance to be had, but IT IS possible to do both :)  Co-Authors: Ashley Maestas, OMS IV & Melissa Mahoney, OMS IV