I didn’t come to medicine the traditional way, nor with conventional support. I’m an osteopathic medical student from a small Appalachian town in South Carolina, where opportunities were few and expectations were even fewer.
Throughout undergrad, I was underestimated — not just quietly, but directly. Professors questioned how I even graduated high school. A classmate once told me I should not pursue medicine or advocacy, especially for underserved populations, because I was “from a rural and uneducated town.” Others assumed I lacked critical thinking skills because I’m Catholic — a faith that, at my college, was unfamiliar to many. Some even perceived me as too awkward or “slow” for medicine — comments from both peers and pre-med professors, despite my 3.7 GPA.
Rather than let those experiences define me, I let them sculpt me. I come from proud Sicilian, Middle Eastern, and Jewish roots — cultures that taught me to value justice, persistence, critical thinking, compassion, and formulating my own opportunities. When traditional paths were closed, I carved out my own: working as a maid for my neighbor who was a disabled veteran and his family, teaching myself Spanish through newspapers and free language apps, drafting letters to the editor, and conducting NIH research in South Carolina — a place with few structured academic opportunities.
Medical school hasn’t been without setbacks, either. I’m currently in remediation after narrowly missing the mark on one block exam — a humbling and often isolating experience that made me question whether those past critics were right. Even now, this process is teaching me more than I expected: how to slow down, reflect, and compassionately help struggling peers. It has deepened my empathy, sharpened my listening skills, and inspired me to volunteer with 7 Cups and the Crisis Text Line — not in spite of remediation but because of it. Remediation has not broken me—it is molding me into a better future physician.
An adventure begins when a failure is rightly interpreted as an opportunity to do something extraordinary — this time with more experience and more passion. That mindset wasn’t always easy to hold onto, especially in the face of doubt. However, over time, it became my compass — quiet but steady, forged in grit, and pointed by purpose.
I had been researching the link between nutrition and long-term health outcomes for years, especially as it relates to underserved and rural communities like mine. But in remediation, I finally had the space and confidence to act on that knowledge.
A few months ago, I began intentionally studying peer-reviewed articles on how ultra-processed foods, predatory marketing, and food deserts quietly funnel children into a lifetime of chronic illness. Between lectures, I started reflecting more seriously on how these systems had affected my own community — where many families never had regular access to whole foods or the chance to build healthy habits. I remember people buying boxed mac and cheese labeled “low sugar,” thinking it was a nutritious choice. They were sincerely trying, but they had been misled. I’ve since begun reaching out to local nutrition and hunger advocacy groups to explore collaboration — and from those reflections, I drafted my own policy: The American Farm and School Nutrition Support Act.
The proposed bill, which reallocates existing USDA funding to support whole-food school meals and local farmers, is now being reviewed and revised in collaboration with the offices of Senators John Boozman and Richard Blumenthal, Representative Kim Schrier, and some advocacy groups. I was recently published by KevinMD, invited onto his podcast, and covered by WYFF News 4 and other outlets.
As someone pursuing psychiatry, I often think about prevention — not just of disease, but of hopelessness. Poor nutrition affects brain development, behavior, and resilience. In communities like mine, it also affects opportunity. This bill matters because it helps the children most often overlooked: those in food deserts, underfunded schools, and marginalized communities disproportionately failed by Big Food, Big Pharma, and insurance systems alike.
I don’t think of myself as exceptional, but I do believe I’m proof that when institutions say no, you can still find another way. I want to be the kind of psychiatrist who helps patients recognize that, too — by encouraging them to forge their own paths, even when the traditional ones don’t exist. Whether through free online courses, letters to the editor, or small acts of self-advocacy, I want patients to know their voice has power.
Because for those of us who have been told that we are too different, too awkward, too rural, or too unqualified — it’s not about proving anyone wrong. It’s about forging the path we were once denied or told we didn’t belong on and then widening it so others can follow.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
