In this episode of D.O. or Do Not, I interview Dr. Ashley Peterson. She grew up as a military kid, started kindergarten at age four, and attended UNC Charlotte, graduating at the ripe age of 19 with a degree in anthropology. She then went directly to the Georgia campus of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is very candid about her mistakes and successes there. As a student, she served as the Student National Medical Association's Georgia Chapter President. She was able to take advantage of and learned a lot during away rotations at the flagship PCOM campus.
At 24 years old, she earned a residency spot in family medicine at the prestigious historically black college and university Morehouse School of Medicine.
She has her own podcast called "Real Medicine with Doctor Rox" and her Instagram account has 7,000 followers. She and her family run a non-profit that supports minority students in their educational pursuits. She also continues to give back through the Student National Medical Association as a board member, ensuring the advancement of minority students in osteopathic medicine.
I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did as its host. Thanks for listening!
Host: Tiffany Carlson
Editor: Nick Buskill
In this episode of D.O. or Do Not, I interview Dr. Ashley Peterson. She grew up as a military kid, started kindergarten at age four, and attended UNC Charlotte, graduating at the ripe age of 19 with a degree in anthropology. She then went directly to the Georgia campus of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is very candid about her mistakes and successes there. As a student, she served as the Student National Medical Association's Georgia Chapter President. She was able to take advantage of and learned a lot during away rotations at the flagship PCOM campus.
At 24 years old, she earned a residency spot in family medicine at the prestigious historically black college and university Morehouse School of Medicine.
She has her own podcast called "Real Medicine with Doctor Rox" and her Instagram account has 7,000 followers. She and her family run a non-profit that supports minority students in their educational pursuits. She also continues to give back through the Student National Medical Association as a board member, ensuring the advancement of minority students in osteopathic medicine.
I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did as its host. Thanks for listening!
Host: Tiffany Carlson
Editor: Nick Buskill
My name is Dr. Ian Storch. I'm a board-certified gastroenterologist and osteopathic physician,
and you are listening to DO or DO NOT. If you are interested in joining our team or
have suggestions or comments, please contact us at DoOrDoNotPodcast.com. Share our link
with your friends and like us on Apple Podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We hope
you enjoy this episode. Hi, I'm Tiffany Carlson, a second-year osteopathic
medical student from the Midwest. On this episode of DO or DO NOT, I interviewed Dr.
Ashley Peterson. She grew up as a military kid and attended UNC Charlotte, graduating
at the ripe age of 19 with a degree in anthropology. She then went directly to the Georgia campus
of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is very candid about her mistakes and
successes there. As a student, she served as the SNMA Georgian Chapter President. She
was able to take advantage and learned a lot while doing away clinicals at the flagship
PCOM campus. At 24 years old, she earned a residency spot at the prestigious historically
Black College and University Morehouse School of Medicine. She has her own podcast called
Real Medicine with Dr. Rox, and her Instagram account has over 7,000 followers. She and
her family run a nonprofit that supports minority students in their educational pursuits. She
also continues to give back to the Student National Medical Association as a board member,
ensuring the advancement for minority students in osteopathic medicine. I hope you enjoy
the interview. Thanks for listening.
So I'm with Dr. Ashley Peterson, who goes by Dr. Rox. Thank you so much for joining
us this afternoon on DO or DO NOT.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Start with what your normal day looks like, how you prepare for your shift, what you're
doing right now.
Oh, absolutely. So she said my name is Ashley. We're at St. Peterson, but everyone calls
me Dr. Rox. I am doing my residency in family medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm at Morehouse
School of Medicine. I love it. I'm a second year. So right now, like a year and a half
left before I can practice on my own. And then I actually am on night club this week.
So you know, that's the beauty of family medicine. Every week looks different. And so this is
one of our harder weeks because of the time commitment. And overall, I feel like I really
like my program.
So what and how did you become interested in medicine and decide that you really wanted
to go on that journey to become a doctor?
I'm kind of different than like maybe some of my colleagues. I didn't know I wanted to
be a doctor since I was five. I think my life would have been a lot different. So in some
ways I'm kind of happy maybe that I did not. I wanted to do a lot of other STEM things.
So at first I wanted to be a marine biologist. Then I wanted to be an architect. Then I wanted
to be a professor. And now medicine. And before it was medicine, it was pharmacy. And I did
some shadowing and I said, oh, I actually prefer the interaction with people. That's
the part that I like about it. And I feel like I would be missing that if I did pharmacy.
So I decided to do medicine and training from a physician. So this was sophomore year in
college when I made a final decision to be pre-med instead of pre-pharmacy. I came in
as a chemistry major and I was pre-pharmacy.
So where did you go to undergrad? And then when during that sophomore year, the experiences
led you to decide to go into medicine as opposed to pharmacy?
I went to UNC Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so the biggest experience is
definitely the whether or not you can interact with people. That was a big wake up call.
And then it was definitely the beginning of sophomore year that made the decision. Because
the way that our curricula was set up for pre-meds, you kind of had to know what you
were going to be applying to by then because you start on different pre-rec paths. And
I was in the honors college, so they used to hold 13 classes for us to register for.
But to do this, you had to kind of voice what were your long term plans.
How did you first learn about osteopathic school? And then what made you choose the
school you ultimately attended?
I liked osteopathic medicine because the recruiters used to always come to our meetings when I
went to UNC Charlotte and I was the president of what they call MAPS, slash SMA. So the
Student National Medical Association, Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students. So I
was president. I had seen osteopathic medical schools come multiple times and speak to our
students. And so I started to really look up the history behind it. And like, for example,
A.T. Still, who was the founder of osteopathic medicine for anyone listening, he had black
people in his first classes. He had women in his first classes. And there was something
groundbreaking about that, which made me look more into the four tenets. And so the four
tenets of osteopathic medicine basically revolve around that the body can heal itself. And
since the body is a unit, we can help it heal itself through OMT. To sum everything up,
it's more complicated than that, of course. And I believed in that theory. I'm really
big into preventive medicine. And then I ultimately chose the DO school. Actually, it's so interesting
because I got into an MD school and I was truly trying to make a decision. I withdrew
a lot of applications because I knew I wanted to stay in the South. So to answer your question,
the location was huge because I was coming from UNC Charlotte. And so I lived in Atlanta
area previously as a high school student. So I had really missed it. And I said I would
want to move back. And then my dad's family is all in Montgomery, Alabama. So that's like
two hours away across the border from Georgia. And it just made a lot of sense to me to move
back to Georgia as a location. And then also, I know that my osteopathic school, their sister
school in Philadelphia. So the original campus has been around 200 years. And so a lot of
people, I've actually heard someone call it the Harvard of DO schools. And I said, okay,
so it was a very impressive recommendation for most people. So I said, okay, I have this
great institution, great location for me. I think that this is going to be the school
for me.
How was your experience at the school? Did you do any special extracurricular activities,
research?
Yeah, so I didn't do research. Let me tell you why. Everyone peaks it sometimes. I probably
peaked in college, so I'm just being honest. College for me, I was young. I don't know
if I said that. I was very, I was a lot younger. But it was, I'm not saying that it wasn't
hard at times, but it wasn't hard throughout. It was definitely like finals week was hard
or like a certain test was hard or a certain class was hard. But overall, I love UNC Charlotte.
I love the experience. It was, it wasn't a breeze, but it was definitely very smooth,
straight through, you know, I never felt like I failed. So then I get to medical school,
my first failure ever in life, our first failure where I feel like I couldn't cope as well.
I definitely had to seek outside sources. At the time, it was a big failure to me. And
so I did not feel like I had time to do research. I would have, but it felt like I had a lot
of time to do research actively while we had classes. So I did a summer program at Johns
Hopkins in Baltimore called the MSTAR for geriatrics. I thought that's what I wanted
to do at that time. I still love geriatrics. And it was great. It was also my alumni from
our school who helped us, basically recruited us into the program because my mentor in our
prior year, he also had gone and done the program the prior year. So that's how I did
research. I did research in the summer in between first and second year, what they call
the last summer ever of life, right? So dramatic. And I got to go and do research in Baltimore.
So I also was the president and then also for SNMA, so student national medical association.
So for MAPS, which is minority association of pre-medical students, then get upgraded
to SNMA. So I got the upgrade. And then there's like national and local positions. So I took
a local position at SNMA. I'm just so thankful to SNMA, like networking at SNMA and learning
more about different medical school, unsaid application things, whatever it is. I feel
like I learned a lot through SNMA because I'm the first doc in my family. And I didn't
feel like I had that many mentors that helped me get into medical school. And after that
helped me be successful in medical school. So I felt indebted. So I took a local, I had
a local position. I was president, my local chapter. Then I had a regional position. And
then I had a national position. I was osteopathic, co-chair, other little extracurricular things.
Can you just tell us a little about that organization for individuals that are minorities and may
not know where to go when they're applying to schools?
Absolutely. So SNMA was founded in 1964. Its mission is to help people who basically are
underserved and going to help other people who look like that. And so that is basically
everyone. People who are going to help other people. But historically, it is usually a
face and powerful community of black and brown doctors who gather to create more black and
brown doctors. So that is not the mission. I always felt like it was great because I
felt dumb sometimes when I would go to maybe the AMSA meeting and some of the things they
were talking about were way over my head as literally like a super young teenager, freshman
in college. And I didn't know some of the things they were talking about. And so they
were also great. AMSA meetings were great. Everyone was great. But I just had a huge
learning curve. And so I felt like people at MAPS, they also might have been the first
doctor in their family more likely. And I could ask those questions. It felt like a
safe space for me to ask those questions. So I just joined my local. It's always like
this, right? You find something in life kind of randomly. But basically, our pre-med advisor
sends out a list of emails every year to freshmen that have identified that they're pre-med.
She has a list there. And so she sent out the MAPS. She sent out the AMSA. She sent
out like the other pre-med clubs that's fine on campus. I said, oh, Honorary Association
of Proved Medical Students. I'm a minority. I'm going to go and see what's going on there.
So I went and I loved it because of that, like I said, that safe space. I always felt
like I should ask questions. And I felt like what I was asking was a dumb question. And
I never felt like it was a dumb question maybe at AMSA meetings. It's more so of you kind
of get lost in the shuffle. And like I said, it was the learning curve that I personally
witnessed. Literally, the president of AMSA at that time, kudos to her. It's nothing bad.
But her dad was a like world renowned psychiatrist. So, you know, her dad was a doctor and she
knew so much. It was amazing. But I just wasn't there. And then I would go to these MAPS meetings
and they're literally like, this is what you need to do freshman year. Like these are the
classes you need to find out for. These are the books you need. And I say thank you because
I feel like it was more broken down in personal life.
Did you decide to take both Comlex and UCMLE?
Oh, great question. So I did not. I only took Comlex. And that's because I knew what a shadow
of a doubt that I wanted to do primary care. And so because I knew I wanted to do one of
the primary care specialty, I knew I didn't want to do surgery, no ENT, no germ, you know,
radiology, or what they call the robes, which are historically hard, especially some attitudes
of radiology, ophthalmology, anesthesiology, dermatology, and any surgical specialty. I
knew I didn't want to do any of those. I love radiology. Actually, it's something I fell
in love with in the didactics years, as they call it, or the first one or two years where
we're learning from like books and such guys. And then we go on clinicals where we're actually
in in person. I knew I didn't want to do those. So I knew I wanted to do primary care. So
having a Comlex only at that time, what still made you very competitive for MD residency
programs. And then at that time, we still had the DO match. So I said, why take another
test? We're failing. Like I said, I had struggles academically. So I said, I will be risking
me a failure. I'm past. Let me just please get past like third or fourth year. I'm doing
well. And I felt that way. I feel like there's no point in it. Because I think if you I will
ask and I know if you want to do a surgical special, I really, really encourage you please
take both. You open so many more doors for yourself. You want to do like general surgery.
You need to see both Comlex and U.S.M.A. And there's gonna be someone out there who says
that's not true. My third cousin got in with only Comlex. And I'm not saying that's not
true. They probably score off the charts, you know, 750. But what I'm saying is more
so is that you keep more doors open. And in surgery, on the road specialties, you have
to keep every door open. That competitive is you could definitely be meet the qualifications
for like 99 programs, right? 100 program that actually is the one that gives you that extra
interview that helps you match like, you never know, I would, I would take it.
You mentioned some people that have been instrumental during your journey. Are there any specific
people that you met in school that were extra special people?
Oh, yeah, I think we all find our little clique. Beauty is for me, I really found a beautiful
group of about seven to eight people. We were all minority in some in some way. And it was
three guys, five girls. To this day, amazing friends. We used to all stay together. We
used to all look out for each other like, hey, remember this assignment due today, guys?
Hey, remember this? Hey, did you get this book? I have a PDF. Hey, I put something in
the Google Drive, I put together a chart. Hey, and then our class was pretty civil in
that I feel like everyone we had a shared Google Drive. And if someone made like a chart,
like the class is a whole, not just these eight people as the class of someone made
like a chart to help them study, they will put it in the Google Drive. So it was it was
definitely not a toxic competitive environment. Like I have seen some toxic people and individuals,
but the culture was not that way. And I think that's important to distinguish, there's always
gonna be a few now. And there's nothing new about this because medicine is just very it
attracts very competitive people. So I felt like the culture overall was one of like,
we're trying to help each other.
Where did you do your clinical rotations? And we already think you were family med the
whole way. But were there any other aha moments during those clinicals?
So the big aha moment was I was trying to decide, okay, do I really want to do primary
care? Like, why primary care? You need to confirm primary care. And I did. For me, it's
a feeling. I go to a place I'm smiling. When I'm feeling mess and I was smiling. I was
ready to get up every morning. When I was on like, don't hate me OB. But when I was
on OB, I dreaded it. It could have been my preceptor. He was classically toxic. He made
men, women, children cry. Thankfully, they made me cry. Because I knew about him beforehand.
And that's why your friends are important and your classmates. They warned me. And so
since I was warned, I was okay. Because I put up walls and barriers and just kept it
professional and moved on with my life. But he was awful. And that's true. And so I confirmed
family medicine. That was a huge leap for me. Because I was like, I can just say you
really don't know if people will tell you that. You don't know you haven't been on
clinicals. You might change your mind. I never changed my mind. And not I'm not even really
that stubborn person. I'm very open minded. I just knew I love family. I love primary
care. I thought about peas. I was like, okay, well, what about peas? I realized I love geriatrics.
I love adults as well. And I said, okay, well, what about internal? Since you love adults
so much, you love geriatrics so much. Most geriatrics are internal medicine trained.
But then I was like, nope, I love peas. And that's a real family medicine. You love everything.
And then I also thought about psych. I thought about psych very heavily because some of my
family members unfortunately struggle with mental health. So seeing that firsthand, my
dad was in the Marines for 23 years. So you can guess some of the things that he deals
with. He's great. He's amazing. He's actually doing extremely well in life. But you know,
there's behind the scenes things that definitely affect him from that experience and from his
previous career. So I've seen that. And so I thought about maybe doing psych. But when
I got there, I loved it, actually. So I love psych. Don't get me wrong. But it just didn't
give me the skills that I got in family medicine. So that was huge. Then the other like ranty
question is that I was in a Georgia campus, right? But they had a lottery for our clinical
sites. And everyone wanted to stay in Atlanta and wanted to stay in Georgia. They thought
everyone was crazy. He went up to Pennsylvania and Atlantic City, which is where I was. It
was amazing. They thought everyone was crazy for moving because moving is expensive. And
then if you have a family, I get it. Right. But I was a military kid growing up. I moved
like eight times as a kid. I'm like, I'm ready to go. I've been here for three years. I'm
ready. Which is how long I stayed in a place in the military. Three years, you're out.
So it had been three years. I was itching to leave. I love Atlanta. I would never leave
here ever again. I feel bad. I probably won't be able to listen. But we're gonna fly to
residency because I miss Atlanta. But I was like, I'm ready to go. And I told everyone
the clinical sites up north are way better for training as a med student. So, and I'll
be true. I'm at least my school and my experience and my group of friends and what they told
me. And basically up north, you're either working one on one with a doc, which was invaluable.
And then like outpatient clinic, or you're working in a hospital on like a very well
established and very well regarded team of residents. So AtlantaCare. I loved it. Or
you were in Philadelphia, you were in rotation. So I mean, that's amazing. I had never lived
or been in Philly. The furthest I had lived north was Virginia DMV area. So I thought
it was amazing and worth it to move with that experience because you got to train very well.
Like my surgical rotation, I felt like I was in there doing surgery, or maybe strike. I
close layers, I put, they asked me what order would you want to put in? I mean, they put
in the order I learned about. I held the scope. If I wanted to do surgery, that rotation definitely
could have been like the starting ground for a letter and like confirming that I want to
do surgery or like being able to really work on my surgical skills. Because if you want
to do it on that rotation, you could do it. I just had no interest in surgery. And so
I was able to work hard and help them as they needed as opposed to in Georgia, there was
a different experience. It was as hands on, it was only one type of surgical practice.
So let's say bariatric maybe, and they only had like three surgeries a week. So imagine
doing three bariatric surgeries a week, that's it. And then a little bit of surgical clinic,
that's your surgical rotation. The experiences were like day and night. And that happened
to someone I know who wants to do surgery. So it's kind of like, wow, I actually made
a post the other day, top five things that like changed my life or like career. And I
think moving to Philadelphia and Atlanta city for that year and a half was one of them.
I totally got trained really well. I think it's helping me now in residency, especially
OB. He taught us C-sections backwards and forwards. So you were first to C-sections,
which is what made it so hard because you're doing like five first to C-sections a day.
It was great in that aspect. And so when I went on my OB rotation this year, everyone
was like, wow, did you want to do OB? OB for you? And everyone on my board was top five
and my OB score was one of my highest scores. And that's because I got the training. I know
because every day I used to go home in like a sweat full of nervousness and like tears
probably. It was high stress. I went home and studied every day because of that though.
Let's talk a little bit about residency. How is your application process to getting into
a residency? And then how did you ultimately choose your program? Like what made it stand
out? Well, my program is at Morehouse School of Medicine. I can't say their name. And so
their mission is to help minority communities and underserved communities. So that historically
attracts a lot of minorities and underserved residents. And so a lot of people see it as
like a HBCU or a historically black college or university. So because the Morehouse School
of Medicine, which is different institution, different entity actually than their Morehouse
College counterpart, they're still very interlinked, I think, in people's mind. And so I was looking
for that actually, because to keep it short, I had had other experiences at other places.
And so I had decided I needed a place where I felt safe to learn. And so I think institutions
sometimes they really undervalue how important it is to foster a safe environment for certain
students, whether that be our LGBTQ plus community, whether that be, you know, black and brown
people, or however people identify that minority, women even. And just knowing that there's
a safe space in medicine for you. I was really looking for that wherever that was. It did
not have to be HBCU, but it had to be that. Like my whole application was talking about
black and brown. Like before this was a trend. This was like, when I went into medicine,
I wanted to help underserved communities and people who looked like me, who looked like
my grandmother who literally pit cotton. And so her health is affected by, so I made sure
I put a lot of that in my personal statement. So people would know when I came from the
interview that I was serious. So the application process, as you asked, I put very heavy what
I was looking for in a program and what a program can expect for me. I think that's
important for people to say as well, like, these are my strengths. That's why I feel
like I can bring to your program. For me, it was research. I also can work hard, no
matter what. I told them look back on my emails. I know I failed first year and I had to repeat.
I know that I have very average board scores, but I improved from level one to level two.
I actually had, I think like an 18 or 20 percent improvement. So look at that. I'm trying to
improve better every year. First year I failed, second year I passed through, third year I
did better on my level two. Fourth year, you know? And then fourth year I honored all my
evals. Look at all the evals and read them. They're all honor. So I just kept being better.
And so I told people that too, I have resilience. So those are my three things. And then I'm
going to give back to the community no matter what. No matter where I am, I'm going to be
a community service chair. I'm going to be like giving back or whichever I'm going to.
And then I was a natural leader. So those are the five I kind of went off of. Service,
leadership, research. I'm resilient. No matter what you throw at me, I'm going to work hard.
And then I'm just a positive person too. So those are kind of like the five things that
I built my application around. And I put it in my personal statement through evidence.
Always show evidence in your personal statement. So if you're going to say, I love serving
others, well then your next sentence should definitely be the evidence. So you should
just say, for example, I'm the president of my local Humane Society. Oh, okay. Evidence.
We got it. So they said. And I know you're not serving, so you can put it in your personal
statement, but just show the evidence of what you're saying.
Can you talk about some of your work in the community, like what you're doing?
Oh yeah, absolutely. So right now I am the resident association president for all of
the Morehouse programs. It's actually like so humbling because it's exactly what I said.
Like when I got to Morehouse, like previously I had maybe some more negative experiences
where I felt like when I would bring up minority issues, I might not have been supported. And
that's happened throughout my whole life, honestly. Like I said, I think people are
now more and more aware and now more comfortable. But my whole life, like my grandmother walked
with King because my family is from Montgomery, like I said, my dad's family. So we were huge
on like social justice. Like people could definitely call our family like a social justice
warriors, right? So that led to some uncomfortable conversations and uncomfortable asks sometimes.
And so since I had some experiences in that way, I got to Morehouse. I was so happy. I
was like, this is what I was looking for. Like I could literally cry tears of joy now.
That's why I came there. Like everyone is a social justice warrior. If anything, I'm
like very kind of like cold, like cold feet compared to everyone else. I remember I went
on my OB rotation, or gyne rotation, let me say that. And the first, like literally I
met the doctor that's in there. I never met her before. She's historically not cold, but
just focused, serious, very serious, stoic doctor. And she said, oh, hi, nice to meet
you. And the next question she asked me was, did you vote? And that's a pretty, like, in
this climate, like kind of emotionally charged question. But that was supposed to show you,
she didn't ask me who I voted for or anything like that. But more so, did you exercise direct
to vote? And I love that. That's what I love about being here. So even when I got here,
I received an award within six months, which to me is so crazy. It's so crazy, because
the same things that helped me get this award here at Morehouse, like the same questions
I was asking, the same programs I was implementing, the same leadership that I was talking to
about certain ideas. And so that, I was like, it was confirmation. I was like, okay. And
so some of the things I'm doing are Hill Clinic, which is health equity for all lives. And
so it's a free student run clinic that we help the Morehouse School of Medicine students
run. And so we basically act like they're attending. And we sign out to attend. But
the first year you're getting this experience, saying like you're a leader over other learners.
So that'll help you learn very quickly. And so I was a volunteer, family medicine volunteer
co-chair last year. That was one of the big things we pushed. We're doing lots of drives
in the community. And now, as the resident association president, I'm over all seven
programs and the three fellowships. And I communicate our resident fellowship needs
to the GME, also known as the graduate medical education. So basically like the chair of
all the departments, the PD of all the apartments, the assistant PDs, and then the chair of those
chairs. So that will be Dr. Linda Wimberley, who's over all of GME. She's amazing. She
was like Atlanta's top pediatricians every year. She's amazing. So as a second year,
that's huge because it's usually a third year.
Morehouse is an allopathic institution. Do you think your experience is different there
as a DO?
So my family medicine class, family medicine was the first program here. And it was founded
in 1978. So since 1978, there has never been a class with more than one DO. And before,
actually, my mentor who was a DO, now a graduate of the program last year, his name is Roger
Stewart. I met him, guess where I met him? Through SNMA as an occupational coach here.
So that's why I say those programs and those positions helped me network more than anything
and not network in a way of like, I'm going to meet you so I can like, you can help me
get things. But rather just people, you make real connections, you make real friends. And
I went on the website for Morehouse because sometimes what we call DO-friendly programs
and DO-unfriendly programs, like for example, we'll call out any names, but there's a program
in New York. And I remember listening when they were on Dr. Radio and they said they
never take DOs. They decline all DOs. This was like five years ago. Who knows? They have
changed right now. You know, a lot of people change. Leadership changes. That's a big thing.
And they kind of push those people out and they're like, maybe some more open minded
progressive leaders. So things are changing, right? But when they said that, I said, okay,
DO-unfriendly programs. So it's really out there. It's not actually as common as people
make it out like, these MDs don't like us. I actually feel like that's not true. At least
not where I am. But you know, I'm coming from like Morehouse, which is like very open minded
and then Emory, who similarly makes a temporary hospital. I would say a progressive school
as well. And then some of the surrounding places, Wellstar, etc. They're very progressive
overall as a program. So it's hard to be like, is there really a stigma, like let's say another
program that might not have ever taken a DO? I don't know. But Morehouse had taken a DO
from my understanding in the family medicine program in like eight years, maybe even more.
And that's like 1978. Like, there's not that many other years in there. So 1% of all residents
at Morehouse, which really is usually between 180 to 200. So all the Morehouse programs
are fellowships. 1% were DOs. Six years ago, 1% were DOs. The next year, 2% were DOs. The
next year 3%. Then it dropped back down 2%. And then 3%. And then this last year was the
highest percentage in the last six years, 5%. And they all are funneled through my school.
They were all from my school. My class, all 5% of the DOs that they had were from my school.
Everyone wanted to stay in Georgia, right? The first two DOs in Morehouse's family medicine
program. So kind of like breaking barriers a little bit. And so that was exciting. But
my experience is different. I historically, if I'm honest, I historically do really well
on the OMT. That's one thing my school, I will give them credit for. They taught us
OMT very well. Experts. They're world renowned.
Medical school is a big price ticket. How did you finance your education? And then do
you have any advice for students thinking about medicine or are already in medicine
to finance that that big piece of their education?
Yeah, so I tried to be a very good person, right? So I had a lot of help from my parents.
And that's by the grace of God. My parents, they, we all they both worked and they are
both educated. My dad was a Marine, as I said, and my mom was a teacher slash school counselor
at one point. So they always had at least enough income to help us. I went to a state
school so UNC Charlotte. My tuition every year when I started as a freshman at UNC Charlotte
because they historically used to be a commuter school was about 2500 a semester. That's very
reasonable. It's a lot of money. Don't get me wrong, right? But compared to when I hear
some of my friends who went to like Baylor, they were paying 40k for tuition and room
board or whatever. I was like, I got really lucky. So I didn't have a lot of like undergrad
debt that helps, right? But that means that you're able to borrow more for private loans
if you have to, whichever. And then also there's a cap. People don't realize there's a cap
for federal loans. I think it's something like 400 or maybe 500k. Some of my friends
met at a medical school because they had not only done their like, expensive, unfortunately,
undergrad debt, but they also had debt from a graduate program if you just own the two
year master's programs to raise your GPA. So now that I'm in the medical school, so
they capped out like halfway through third year or second year. So that's huge. I didn't
have undergrad debt. My parents paid for it for me. But also if you're an undergrad trying
to think about how to pay for stuff, there's Pell Grant. If you meet the qualifications,
it's basically like federal loans from Pell Grant. Applying for your institutional scholarships,
as soon as you find out that you're accepted to a place, apply for scholarships next. It's
not done. You should post your acceptance video and then you should go apply for scholarships.
So my parents picked up a lot of the tab. That allowed me to be able to pick up a little
odd jobs to pay for stuff like undergrad. My tuition was like, I always used to sometimes
be like, what if my parents didn't help me? What if something happened to me? I also still
felt like I could pay my tuition. You don't see Charlotte was great for me. Oh, and one
more thing. My dad was military, right? He received GI Bill, but he could transfer it
to his kids. So God bless that man. So my sister got the use of GI Bill from her school
and I used it for one year of medical school. So now getting the medical school. There's
multiple things. They have programs where I applied for the health service course. I
wanted to do primary care, right? The health service course is very fair. It goes in tiers.
So there's tier one and tier two. Tier one is for underserved dependents. That's the
other thing. You have to give your parents financial information. You have to. There's
no way around it if you're under 26. Because you have to give your parents information,
basically show that I had no financial need and my parents helped me. Don't get me wrong,
but I had to take out loans. They couldn't help me pay. So it's like financial need and
like how strongly you want to do primary care. So any other primary care is OBP, family,
or internal. I think they're considering emergency medicine and psych now as well in the health
service court. You'll have to look at us. But that's invaluable because you get a spike
in every month. I think it's like $1,500. And if you commit to serve for four years after
residency graduation, they'll pay for your medical school. That's tier three. So tier
two, then it's like you're committed, financial need. Then tier three is like you're committed,
but there's no financial need. So I was ultimately determined to be in tier three. And a lot
of states also have those types of programs. There's programs that you can apply to in
fourth year at medical school. Georgia has one. If you're thinking about doing family
medicine, apply it as a fourth year. You get a spike in your residency. I know people are
doing that one where they have to give back for four years as well. There's other programs,
very similar. There's a military where if you do the same thing four years of service,
then you get four years back. And then you get to do the military match. There's a lot
of different programs, honestly. But the blessing is I knew that I wanted to do primary care.
A lot of primary care places would do like sign-on bonuses. So they'll pay your loans
off for you over time. And then if you work in an underserved area, I knew I wanted to.
And remember one time I was a nonprofit as a residency. They count. So my residency
was three years. If you work 10 years, you can do loan forgiveness. So those are some
of the options. I would look into all your options. I think planning and knowing what
you want to do will help.
Do you have any individuals that are very significant to you that support you on this
journey?
Yes. So I have a boyfriend. He's actually a surgical resident. So he's influential because
he gets it. I think that really helps. But you don't have to be in medicine to get it.
I think just be supportive of your partner. A lot of times, especially in residency. Family
medicine, actually, we do significant hours. But like compared to the surgical fields like
OB, general surgery, etc., ENT, etc., etc., some of the hours are a little bit more flexible,
like more like 60 hours versus 80 hours. And those 20 hours a week matter. So if your partner
says that they don't have time, they really might not have time. I know it's really good
being in like this, but really learning your love languages. I'm not sure if everyone knows
what love languages are. But look up the five love languages. It really helps with communication
for partners. So like mine is quality time. So it's great, actually, because I'm so busy
that I don't know if he's busy. So the time that we do have like when we have days off
together, like actually today is the day that we have off together, we have plans. And so
we already have those plans and we never change those plans. So just planning really well,
I think that matters. Versus like his is like at the surface. So he likes when I cook, like
on a day where I know I might not see him, like physically, because he's on nights and
on days. I'll cook and I'll just bring it by his place and just leave it in the fridge
and then just come back to my place. And so when we get off, you'll see it, right? So
that means a lot of stuff like that. If you know any person who likes to do it, so like
work affirmation, leave it unknown, stuff like that. And then also my parents are amazing,
very supportive as well. I used to see my mom like every six weeks, just a running jump,
because they live in Virginia. They live in Virginia. Now they live in Vegas. But the
people are always like, it's like your parents live here. And my mom calls it her vacation.
Because literally, he's like, and then like, is that my dad's family's in Montgomery, forever
for like home sick. That's happened a couple of times, especially intern year. Now they're
taking it so I haven't seen anyone in a while. But I still go to Montgomery all the time,
just go get a home cooked meal.
What has made you successful? And like, what would you define as your superpower?
I think my resilience has made me successful. One of my biggest quotes is, if you fall nine
times, stand up 10. Another common one, if you fall seven times, stand up eight. And
that's definitely my life. Like I said, I fail and I struggle. I think we all do. Mine
is more obvious. If you look at my resume, like you can see that I was in medical school
for five years. It's kind of like, oh, wow. There's a lot of explanations. But mine is
very simple. I had academic struggles my first year. But that didn't stop me. Like I'm an
improver. Once I learn something, I'm not someone who kind of like gets down on themselves.
I take what I've been through and I learn from it. I think that's very important. I
think that's my superpower. Because unfortunately, and fortunately, it's good and bad. A lot
of people in medicine are type A. I think they would identify with type A. I'm more
of a type B with maybe some type A features. There's certain stuff like the ONT I was saying
that I'm more type A about or more anal about. Like I said, most people seem to delay that
pretty quickly.
Well, thank you, Dr. Rox for your time, especially after having a night shift. Thanks for coming
on the podcast. I know you're on social media. Are there any things that you want to share
with our listeners?
No.