MY FIRST REAL-LIFE FAILURE

I grew up in Haiti, went to an all-catholic school – College Marie Anne, Hello to all my CMA girls!!! Same school my older sister of 13 years went; the teachers knew her, so knew my family. In third grade, a teacher asked me to make sure the class was doing their homework as she stepped out for a few minutes and from that day on, I became president of my promotion each and every year. It was not a dictatorship, I campaigned every year after that and got elected. Oh the good old times! Also I almost always had the best grades. I went to dance and karate classes during the school year, and then swimming lessons in the summer – money lost because I still cannot swim to save my life. My group of friends was pretty cool too. So in all, I had a great upbringing. Some will call it sheltered but I will just say I was blessed to have all good things come my way.

Moved to the States at the age of 15, completed junior and senior year of high school in New Jersey, graduated Summa Cum Laude with a bachelors in Communication, minor in Marketing – where I met my best friends of now 14 years. I then moved to Boston for my masters in Communication and Project Management at Northeastern University and started working for a good company there, Enterprise Rent-a-Car. I was in my early twenties, no kids, somewhat good relationships and great friends. After a few years, I started to feel stuck at my job, derived of purpose and just empty. Worked hard for a promotion, got it but the feelings remained the same. I knew I had to change course. Then came Physician Assistant School. A little background on my family: dad is an Orthopedic Surgeon – still practicing at the tender age of 75, and was part of the medical team for the Haitian Soccer team for several years including the only time they played in the World Cup in 1974 and brother is a Sports Medicine physician; mom owns her own lab and plenty of aunties nurses and physicians. So medicine is like the family business – especially Ortho.

I applied, got in a school in Miami Shores, Florida; packed my bags and drove the 19 hours to a new future in July 17, 2016. Not once did I wince and looked back; one thing I can say I admire about myself is my will to succeed, my go-getter mindset. The first couple of months were challenging as I was adjusting to studying medicine for the first time. Numerous calls were made to my father in Haiti and my brother in New York – having walked this path many years before me, I knew they would sympathize. They did, but they also told me to stop whining and kick butt. Well all right then. Every break I got, I took a plane to Jersey; there were many calls to my girlfriends - Mimi, Jenn, Mema - thank you for answering my calls at all crazy times. Your laughter, encouraging words, plain girl talk, just being there made my time in Miami a little bit sunnier.

Then came my first clinical rotation, August 2017 – Family Medicine; anyone in the medical field knows this just means, you have to know all medicine and know it now. At the end of clinical, we had to take a written and oral/clinical skills assessment test; I FAILED the written part, TWICE. Me, Stephanie, failing a whole semester in school. I could blame my disorientation on the fact we had a major hurricane that month, Irma, which caused us to relocate for a few weeks. I had packed some essentials and moved up to Tampa for a week. School was closed, some of my classmates had to go home until nature calmed down in South Florida and normal school life returned. But others did not fail; I did, and by one point, which made it even worse. If you are going to fail something, let it be catastrophic, but in true Stephanie manor, I failed softly.

My first call was to my brother, I cried like a baby. He comforted me, said all the right words but they were not enough. Next phone call, was to my dad. What girl does not call their daddy for any little inconvenience? Well mine was more than little, and I am and will always be my daddy’s girl. His first reaction was surprise: “You do not fail Stephie”. What he meant to say which I understood was I glazed through my prior academics with near perfect scores, I graduated Summa Cum Laude – yes in Communications but still it was with honors, then my prior masters. There was never a goal I set for myself I did not knock out of the park. I was not accustomed to losing and God, did that failure hurt. I cried to my roommate E, from PA school, to my advisors and my dad called me on day 3: “I gave you 3 days to cry and be sad, now let’s change the scenario”. I could not recall a day I cried more. I was in such a dark space. I felt like a failure, I let my teachers down, but most importantly, I let my parents down. I cried for days. I was so lost that my dad wrote me a letter, handwritten letter. “This is your first real-life failure and you cannot believe it, mais tout ira bien, nous t'aimons et avons confiance en toi”.

Sometimes you fall, and you fall hard. You have never missed a mark you have set your eyes on and you feel like the universe has turned on you. How dare this happened to you? What do you do? You buckle down; examine where you felt short and attack harder.

The next 7 rotations were a walk in the park, 86 was my lowest grade and I passed my certification with a magnificent score. So again, I set my goals and reached them. I was chosen to give a speech about my clinical experience to the junior class. Your failures are yours, but use them to do good. Control the negative. Use your experiences, good or bad, to fuel you and help the next person. I wanted to be able to let other students know it is ok to struggle, no one told me this during school. Maybe it was pride or plain embarrassment but I wanted to empower the next group of students entering clinical life: this thing is hard, you will be applying the books to real life scenarios now and failure, if it happens, is not a death sentence and you will pull through. Medicine is hard, but going at it alone is devastating. I will fail again, I will not get the job I want, the biggest house on the block but you bet I will regroup, analyze the situation and get better.

So we are here now, almost a year practicing and my first job is in the “specialty” I failed in school. Who would have thought?! And I am loving it. Everything happens for a reason, even and especially when you cannot grasp the lesson it is trying to teach you at the moment. I remember feeling bummed not being able to get the Ortho position I wanted. I wanted to be in the operating room like my father and heal fitness lovers like my brother and get them back out there. If I had taken that position, I would have been furloughed currently during this pandemic. Even on a deeper level, practicing general medicine has made me a better, well-rounded practitioner and helping people not only physically but mentally, spiritually. Being here feels right, being here feels peaceful; until I am called to break out this comfort zone and reach higher, in due time.

What are some ways you conquered a goal or managed a failure? Share with us.