From teen drug user to long-term recovery to recovery advocate to medical school to suicide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Physicians are human and you will find plenty of doctors who use drugs. I know someone who climbed out of that hole. I dare anyone in that industry to contradict me.

It's terribly hypocritical to have denied this talented young woman a chance to have a brilliant career in the medical field. She had left the drugs behind. It's unbelievable that she was ostracized for mistakes she made as a teen. Seriously disappointing.

The problem is she was up against students without prison records. She had a 7 year prison term. The medical programs are going to choose the students without the history of using drugs and alcohol even if she had been clean for awhile.
Sadly the other problem was that she went public and spoke publicly about her history of using. This is clearly a case where she should have kept her personal history of using drugs and alcohol private.

I agree with the other poster. She could still have parlayed her skills into a pretty decent career. There is a giant need for prison doctors and always jobs for researchers etc.

She choose very competitive (ortho surgeon) then very stressful (ER) which shows she didn’t have a good grasp on how she appeared to others and in competition to other very well qualified doctors without the back story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like she still could have been an MD just not in a specialty that she wanted. How tragic that she could not see that.

She could have pivoted and become a psychologist.

To become a psychologist, she would have needed to go back to school and start from scratch. Psychologists have Doctoral degrees in Psychology (=PsyD). Physicians are doctors of medicine (=MD) and these include psychiatrists which are different than psychologists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very sad story, for multiple reasons.

However, it needs to be acknowledged that they made the right decisions in this case. If she was so mentally unstable that she'd kill herself over this, there's absolutely no way she would not have slipped back into drug abuse when bad things happened to her in her career - deaths of patients, mistakes with horrible consequences, lawsuits, etc.

I agree on all points.

It is tragic but this is also not a story of someone who made one single mistake and was blackballed for life and had no way out. She was an intense and all-or-nothing person with serious mental health issues. Ultimately this would have come up again. It's just terrible.

[Anonymous]

My DH is the head of resident selection for a mediumly competitive specialty at a prestigious DMV hospital and, though she may have gotten an interview if her academic record was good enough (and I would note that they don't say anything about her clerkship grades or board scores, which are the things that actually matter in matching for a residency) & she did a good enough spin job on her history in her personal statement, there's every chance she would have been blackballed during the selection meeting. (They don't explain her whole criminal history and if there's any drug stealing/fraud/etc involved, then the concern would be even more heightened.) This even though my DH's residency program is MUCH less competitive than ortho and a bit less competitive than ED... Genuinely her med school gave her bad advice if she had to scramble for a prelim match (which is what it sounds like) or she completely ignored whatever advice they gave her. The fact she didn't match in something at Rutgers or back at Rochester for the second year implies, again, that folks there had concerns or that she wasn't willing to lower her ambitions despite advice to do so. Her Linked In says she was a resident out in Las Vegas, so I'm curious if she did a different prelim year (medicine) and so had to move again or whether she did match in something else but still wasn't satisfied; the article leaves out her LV residency entirely.

Nonetheless, I feel a huge amount of empathy for her given that she appears to have done everything right after a rough start and I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for her that she couldn't overcome it.

[Anonymous]

I read the C-SPAN transcript. She first started smoking pot at 12, at 18 she was injecting heroin and was convicted of robber and aggravated assault and sentenced to 7 years. When she was paroled she started abusing cocaine and prescription drugs. She rear ended a state trooper and was fortunate to have a choice to go to a treatment center. She said she wanted to go to med school to treat hiv/aids patients.

I don't think a residency in orthopedics (lots of people in pain needing pain medication) or emergency medicine (lots of pain medication around) were good choices for her.

Someone earlier posted that her record should have been sealed. These aren't crimes or addictions that occurred when she was under 18. I am surprised any med school took a chance on her because it is so incredible competitive to get into med school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read the C-SPAN transcript. She first started smoking pot at 12, at 18 she was injecting heroin and was convicted of robber and aggravated assault and sentenced to 7 years. When she was paroled she started abusing cocaine and prescription drugs. She rear ended a state trooper and was fortunate to have a choice to go to a treatment center. She said she wanted to go to med school to treat hiv/aids patients.

I don't think a residency in orthopedics (lots of people in pain needing pain medication) or emergency medicine (lots of pain medication around) were good choices for her.

Someone earlier posted that her record should have been sealed. These aren't crimes or addictions that occurred when she was under 18. I am surprised any med school took a chance on her because it is so incredible competitive to get into med school.

She was troubled but she was really, really smart. She scored in the 99% on the MCAT despite all the baggage from her addiction, emotional issues, etc.

[Anonymous]

As an employer it’s just too much liability to have her in a situation where she has access to powerful drugs and holds patient lives in her hands. Orthopedic Surgery and ER were possibly among the worst choices for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like she still could have been an MD just not in a specialty that she wanted. How tragic that she could not see that.

She could have pivoted and become a psychologist.

To become a psychologist, she would have needed to go back to school and start from scratch. Psychologists have Doctoral degrees in Psychology (=PsyD). Physicians are doctors of medicine (=MD) and these include psychiatrists which are different than psychologists.

She could have been a psychiatrist with an MD. Psych is very non competitive. She should have been able to match somewhere.

[Anonymous]

More than anything else... family matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More than anything else... family matters.

What??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More than anything else... family matters.

What??

A child spiraled out of control in middle school and parents did not notice? Teen depression I can understand, but a child getting access to drugs and alcohol I cannot. Where was the parental supervision? At the end of it all, in spite of her many achievements, there was no family for her to go back to or live for. She was not resilient and she could not lean on her family.

[GabiJohnson]

Sounds like she still could have been an MD just not in a specialty that she wanted. How tragic that she could not see that.

[Anonymous]

I think we also have to recognize the mentality of Med students is often get into a competitive speciality or die. Many many Med students and residents commit suicide- it is a tragedy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More than anything else... family matters.

What??

A child spiraled out of control in middle school and parents did not notice? Teen depression I can understand, but a child getting access to drugs and alcohol I cannot. Where was the parental supervision? At the end of it all, in spite of her many achievements, there was no family for her to go back to or live for. She was not resilient and she could not lean on her family.

She was incredibly resilient

[Anonymous]

Her suicide note: https://www.idealmedicalcare.org/doctors-suicide-note-asks-us-to-end-discrimination-in-medicine/