I am incredibly grateful and humbled by this award. My story is filled with love and suffering, and my hope is that it reaches as many women as possible and if one can be inspired, touched, or feel understood then it has all been worth it. This award will help me continue my education and training in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
I had never witnessed a cesarean delivery, so scrubbing in on the first day of rotations as a first-year medical student felt like a dream come true. After all, this is what I'd wanted to do with my life for as long as I could remember. The expectant mother we were readying for surgery had been in-house for several weeks but to everyone’s surprise went into precipitous labor with a breech baby. Tears streaked my face under my mask as I watched in horror as this mother lost her child. Not an hour later I helped my preceptor deliver a perfect, wailing baby girl. The contrast left an indelible mark on me: while a joyful new mother cried as she cradled her healthy, chubby newborn daughter, just two doors down another mother was in the throes of crushing grief as she held her silent son. I laid my hand on both of those women's shoulder and later that night realized with startling clarity that we go into this field for both of them. We share in a mother's greatest joy and deepest sorrow, serving in whatever capacity they need us in those achingly profound, life-changing moments.
Few who knew my family and its history might have expected me to travel this path, but I now look back and know that all the challenges and trauma I’ve experienced have shaped me into an empathetic scholar and future physician with a passion for helping women. A career in medicine might seem like a pipedream when your parents were raised in a village with no electricity or running water and who received only enough education to read at a basic level. They came to this country never expecting to have a deaf daughter who would require years of medical services and money they didn't have. But my mother and father are nothing if not resilient with a work ethic etched in me from my earliest memories. My dad, whose mother was deaf and mute, taught me to read lips. Mom, meanwhile, rejected every doctor that offered no hope until she found one who did. I heard my mom's voice for the first time when I was five. The doctor who made it happen cared about me, and all I wanted in the world was to be like him.
Learning to speak after years of watching others wasn’t easy. My voice didn't sound like the other kids' so when I'd translate for my mom during her medical visits, I often faced a wall, tucked into a corner not only because I wanted to preserve her modesty but also because I felt shy. In those moments, I might think about my ear doctor and how animated and open my mom was with him, comfortably speaking Spanish, their shared tongue. Her OB/Gyn visits felt like a stark contrast; I could feel the embarrassment radiating off her and hear the hesitance in her voice as she shared intimate 'women things' I didn't understand even as I translated them. After one particularly mortifying visit, I remember saying to her, “Mom, I'm going to go to school to be a lady doctor so I can cure you and you can talk to me." Little could she grasp the impact her own healthcare journey was making on me.
Fast-forward two decades and I am in my junior year of college, studying for the MCAT and still living in my beloved Chicago. But this was far from a comforting scene. In a cold hospital emergency room, a nurse kept saying "Ivette, Ivette" over again, trying to coax me to talk. But every time she uttered my name, my whole body would quake as I folded into myself. When I thought I could bear no more, a young woman opened the curtain and sat in a chair next to me silently reading my chart. She introduced herself as an OB/Gyn and asked, "What can I call you?" Thanks in large part to her kindness and patience, I slowly managed to explain how a man had terrorized me, making me fear even the sound of my own name. "Call me Ive," I finally whispered. This physician would become a foremost ally and friend, one who walked alongside me during the long journey to recovery as a survivor of rape.
The mothers with the silent babies, and the ones with the crying newborns, the victims of sexual violence, and the women sharing their most intimate secrets: each and every one of these women needs a home where she can speak freely and needs a confidant who will respond with comforting words along with the best possible medical care. My time at TCU’s Anne Marion Burnett School of Medicine has proven to me, time and again, just how much I aspire to become all the doctors who have changed my life.
It's been twenty-one months since my first OB/Gyn rotation, and my journey through women's care has been enriched by my personal experience of becoming a mother. I appreciate what a privilege it is to be entrusted with some of the most intimate aspects of a woman's life, and I embrace the exceptional level of training as well as dedication, empathy, and love required to uphold the highest standards of the profession. I look forward to joining a family of residents, attendings, nurses, and, most importantly, patients that will create a home for me to continue to flourish as a remarkable servant and leader in women's healthcare.
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