Nontraditional College of Medicine Grads Follow Winding Path
| April 24, 2017 | All life stories have a purpose. A journey is taking place. A path is being forged.
But for many of the non-traditional students graduating in this year’s UAMS College of Medicine class, the way forward wasn’t always obvious. The path that brought them to medicine was a winding one.
“Looking back, I am able to pull out all those parts and lace it all together, and it turned into a journey that makes a lot of sense now,” Ginger Holton said. “But if you had told me seven years ago that this is how things would turn out, I would have been shocked.”
Ginger Holton is pictured with her family on Match Day. Ginger and her husband, Kyle, are in the middle, and their children are, from left, Eli, 11; Eden, 9; and Asher, 15.
Seven years ago, Holton was in Mozambique, the southern African nation. She was working for a non-governmental organization as a community health worker in women’s health, putting her Master of Public Health degree to good use. She was surrounded by medical workers, but her role was organizational in nature.
However, such distinctions didn’t make a difference the first time a panicking mother brought Holton a toddler who had fallen into a cooking fire and been burned. Holton treated the little girl. The feeling Holton got from that first patient interaction crystalized it in her mind: she wanted to do clinical work. So she organized a burn clinic for the village, and when her contract ended after eight years in Mozambique, she knew that medical school would be her next step.
Linda Murphy’s winding path took her around the world as well, but it also ran circles in her own mind. Murphy has worked as a social worker and she taught Spanish and chemistry. She studied in Spain and did mission work in South America. She has two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree. Twice during school, she took pre-medicine courses. But both times she looked around at her classmates and didn’t see herself in them. She grew up with a single mom who – while she provided Murphy with a rich respect for education – couldn’t give her the kind of financial support that Murphy’s pre-med peers had to fall back on. Both times Murphy ended up getting degrees in other areas of interest, but she had a nagging feeling that she wasn’t truly following her dreams.
Later when she was teaching high school chemistry, one of her students’ parents asked why she hadn’t become a doctor. Murphy looked inside and took a new inventory. She now had the life experience to know that she could tackle any challenge. She had been all over the world. She had worked – sometimes two jobs – to support herself. She had a supportive husband.
Jordan Greer will complete his residency at in surgery at UAMS.
She realized she had built her own support network. Four years later, as she prepares to graduate, she knows now – in part because of her background in teaching – that her ultimate career goal is to work at an academic medical center. Like Holton, Murphy said she has a deep sense that there is a narrative to her journey that led her to today.
“I absolutely know that that’s true,” Murphy said. “Every little twist and turn was definitely for a reason, and it is all coming together. Looking back now, I just see it as one winding journey. It has all been leading to this point.”
Jordan Greer didn’t get into med school until his second try. He had already earned a Pharm.D. at UAMS and spent a few years as a pharmacist, so not making it in on his first try felt like a misstep at the time. But because of that, the timing fell into place for a series of events that ultimately illuminated his path forward.
As he prepared to start school in August of that year, he and his wife welcomed the birth of their son in March. But they soon found out he had major heart defects. He had his first surgery when he was 8 days old. A second followed at 6 months.
Now 4, Greer’s son is “doing great.”
“With surgery, especially certain surgeries, you go in one day, you come out another day, and the problem is gone,” Greer said. “There were a lot of great things about pharmacy, but a lot of the time, I would be helping people manage a problem that was likely to continue for years. With surgery, I can have an obvious and immediate impact on someone’s life. Before my son’s surgery, I think I had an idea already of what I wanted to do, but that certainly solidified a lot of things in my mind.”
Greer doesn’t like to think about what it would have been like if his son’s health issues had happened while Greer was already in medical school, trying to study for his first-year exams.
“Not getting in that first time was humbling, but it all worked out for the best,” Greer said.
All three said that once they got here, however, whatever fears they had about their own personal path to medical school fell away as they found the support they needed in the UAMS learning environment, study buddies, supportive special interest groups, family at home and mentors who played key roles.
“Mentorship for me was key. For example, Dr. Tariq (Sara Tariq, M.D., assistant dean for undergraduate clinical education) was a huge supporter of my journey,” Murphy said. “When I had doubts, I would go to her office, and she would quickly do away with those doubts.”
Likewise, they discovered there were advantages to their non-traditional backgrounds. All had families at home that depended on their success, so there was less margin for error. And they had the life experience to get things done.
“At 24, there was no way I would have been ready to go to med school, and I certainly wouldn’t have done well,” Greer said. “Giving up a career is a serious, thoughtful decision. With me, I moved my family; we were having a baby; so it wasn’t just me anymore that I had to think about. It gave me additional drive.”
They discovered practical advantages. Holton noticed that she was more comfortable interacting with the patients, especially children, than some of her peers, who asked her for advice. Working with people of different ages and life stages ended up contributing to the learning experience for everyone.
“Sometimes students would say, ‘how did you know to ask them that?’ And it was just, totally the mom in me coming out,” said Holton, who has three children. “You don’t directly learn some of those things. It’s just life experience. And I, in turn, asked a lot of technology questions, and they would laugh at me and roll their eyes and say, ‘oh, Ginger!’ but then help me.”
Greer is headed into a general surgery residency at UAMS. His ultimate career goal is to go into trauma and acute care in an academic medical setting. Murphy is also about to start a general surgery residency at UAMS.
Holton’s next step is a residency in medicine and pediatrics at Yale University. She firmly believes that embracing her own journey, her own narrative, has helped her achieve her goals. When she interviewed for the position at Yale, she told the panel her story with pride, and encourages other students to do the same.
“Do not be afraid to follow what your passions are even if you’ve done something different,” Holton said. “Don’t be afraid to make that change. Find the threads in your story and don’t be afraid to make them part of your narrative. Sometimes I think it’s hard for people to see that, to connect those dots. But I think if you can find those connections and embrace them, they can be a force for good in your life.”