Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/807066
t m c » p u l s e | a p r i l 2 0 1 7 18 18 Q | So how did you change the channel? A | I went to work in South Africa as the director of a health promotion project for adolescents. We were working with children to educate them about HIV and to design programs where they would gain skills to protect themselves and not just fall victim to HIV. The results of the project were not as successful as I had hoped. We tested the children a few years down the road for STDs and there was a really high percentage of them that had a STD, and I just thought, I can't sit in an office for the rest of my life creating research proj- ects that may or may not work. So I decided I'd leave research to those people who are really passionate about it and good at it. Q | Can you describe the moment when you realized that your personal passion was leading you elsewhere? A | I worked really, really long hours, and every day when I drove home it was always after dark. I lived in a beach community and there were hotels not far from my apartment building, and I would pass by prosti- tutes every day. I remember thinking that it was very clearly God saying, 'Are you just going to keep driving by them every day?' So, one day I just stopped, and there were two young girls, 19 and 20, and one of them spoke English, so that's how I was able to communi- cate. And I just said, 'I live right there in that building, do you want to come home and just get something hot to eat and drink and just relax a little bit? And then you can always come back out.' I didn't know what else to do, I just knew that God wanted me to stop. At first they said no, but it was cold outside so I gave one of them my jacket and I guess that made them feel like they could trust me, so they agreed to come with me to get something to eat. We talked and I cooked a meal that took a really long time and they got sleepy and ended up staying the night. Theodore at home with her husband. I never saw them on the street again, but over a year later, the one who spoke English came into my office and she had sores all over her face and she said, 'I have AIDS.' I had never seen AIDS like that before, and I just remember standing there like, I don't know what to do. I'm the director of an HIV and AIDS proj- ect, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to help her. And I thought, am I just here with a title then, doing some research that's really just going to benefit the University of Pennsylvania in the end? Get us more grant money? I remember feeling very helpless at that moment. And she kept coming back to me. She was also pregnant; she delivered at about eight months and the baby died immediately after. So that story makes me feel most ashamed about my time there. I was there to help in terms of HIV, but the one person who really needed it the most, I couldn't do much for her. Q | Your plan was to come back and become a nurse, but here you are in medical school. That must have been a dicult transition. A | I was in my mid-30s and I thought, if I'm going to do something, I better do it now. So, I resigned from my job and my plan was to find a job here and then go to nursing school part-time so I could pay for it. But I couldn't get a job anywhere. I applied for job after job after job, the kind of work I had done, research jobs, all of it, and no one would call me back. I got no job interviews. I moved back in with my mom and ended up working as a substitute teacher, and I had a friend who was working on a Ph.D., so she paid me to help her, but my ego took a hard hit. I just kept praying and asking God for a job and finally I decided to fast. I believe very strongly in God and that he has a plan for everybody's life, and I know now that I just couldn't hear his plan because I had my own plan. I fasted for 21 days, and every day I was praying for a job. No food, just liquids. That's how desperate I was. I felt like my life was out of control. I was thinking that somewhere along the way God was going to say, 'This job is for you,' and around day 17, I just said, 'God, I'm not going to ask you for anything today. You already know what I need, so I'm just going to praise you and just tell you how good you are.' And in the midst of that, I just heard, 'Go back to school.' Six weeks later, I started taking the prerequisite classes for nursing. But something still didn't feel right. I decided to go on a 40-day fast. I was desperate. But at the end of 40 days, I heard nothing. Then one morning, I was waking up, and I remember talking in my sleep, in that half-awake state, and I just said, 'No, God. I'm not going to medical school.' And then I woke up and I thought, 'Well why did I say that?' That had never been on the table. I went to class that day, and after my anatomy and physiology course I went to a tutoring session and the woman looked me in the eyes and said, 'When you finish nursing, you need to go to medical school.' And I thought, no, I'm too old, it's going to cost too much, and I'm happy with nursing. But then I talked to her for a little while and she told me she felt very strongly that I was supposed to be in medical school. And that was the same day I was wak- ing up and had that dream. So that next semester, I was at UH taking my prerequisites for medical school. God just wanted me to get on his plan of going to medical school, because about a month into my time at UH, I went to visit the people I used to work for when I was an undergraduate there, and literally as I was walking out of the office, the dean of the Honors College came out and said, 'Oh, I'm glad you're here! We are in need of a sociology professor, would you be interested?' So then I had my job. Everything fell into place. Q | What are your goals now? What do you hope to do once you complete medical school? A | The only thing I know for sure is that I want to continue to work overseas. My husband is from Haiti and when I was teaching at UH we would take undergraduates there every year to do medical work. We'd get doctors and nurses to come along with us. He grew up as an orphan and then became an assistant director of an orphanage that was run by an American nurse. She would have medical care teams visit and his job was to take those teams out to different parts of Haiti. So that's something that I'm still very passionate about. I want to go to less developed countries and work, but specifically to take students. I really think it's valuable for American students to see what's happen- ing in these other countries. Q | You seem to bristle against the traditional health care model in America, which requires patients to travel to a doctor or nurse's oce, or to a clinic or hospital, for treatment. A | People always have to come to the most edu- cated and privileged people to get what they need, and to me, there's something very wrong with that kind of model. We are privileged and we should be People always have to come to the most educated and privi- leged people to get what they need, and to me, there's something very wrong with that kind of model. — SHASTA THEODORE, PH.D.