Session 327 Jeff was an accomplished athlete, but struggled to gain an acceptance to medical school his first two times. Listen to an amazing story of a student who had all the odds stacked against him coming from a lower socioeconomic household and broken house to turning it all around. Today, he talks about getting scholarship to college, the failures of applying to medical school three times, some life lessons along the way, and how he's continued to fight back. Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet, please be sure to check out all our other podcasts on MedEd Media Network so you get to have more resources to help you along your path towards going to medical school and becoming a physician one day! [01:25] Interest in Becoming a Physician Jeff’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and as he would go to the doctors with her, he has seen the type of compassion and the things that they were doing with her. And this initially sparked his interest in medicine. It was the seed that was planted. When he got to high school, he joined a club that exposed him to a lot of different healthcare fields, specifically medicine, which drove him to decide to go ahead and pursue it. Each week they would spend time with nursing, or go to PT/OT, and then one week would spend time with some physicians. From this, he got to see a lot of different aspects of the medical field as a whole, but medicine in itself really drew him more so than the other parts of it. [03:25] Challenges Growing Up From the Hood Jeff tells about his challenging childhood, growing up in a really rough neighborhood. This and considering his mom having breast cancer, he never really thought he could pursue medicine. In fact, they lived in a city that had mostly black African-American people, and in all of their hospital visits, he never once saw a black physician. Plus, he had to work at a young age of 13-14, working at a barber shop, sweeping floors to help pay for rent. Eventually, he ended up moving with his father later on in high school. This was when he started seeing a different side of things, started seeing more prominent African-Americans, and this got him thinking that if they could do it, then he could too. Moving in with his father, there was just more discipline, which got him on the straight path. He put in a strong foundation and he started telling him about the importance of school. He would make sure he was in class. He started going to parent teacher conferences. [06:07] Attending College and Adopting the Mamba Mentality Jeff did consider going to college during the latter part of his high school year but he really didn’t think this was possible considering the cost. They were still financially struggling at that time. So once he decided to really pursue medicine, he had to find ways to pay for it. He didn’t qualify for academic scholarships because of his grades, but he had one year of football left, so he thought of getting a football scholarship. At this time, he was already three years into school. He communicated with his dad and his coaches. With hard work and determination, he ended up being the top running back in my state, that he began receiving multiple college offers off of one year. However, he knew he wasn’t doing it for the NFL, but it was to get to college so he could ultimately chase his dream of becoming a physician. When he got to college, Jeff considers football as becoming more of a job than high school was. They were practicing, working out, and all that – thirty to thirty-five hours a week. ALongside, he was trying to try to juggle all of that with his classes. This gave him a tough time adjusting to college life. Jeff’s favorite athlete of all time is Kobe Bryant and around this time, Kobe came out with his little vernacular Mamba Mentality, which Jeff adopted. Basically, you have to be ready for opportunity once it comes so you’re able to maximize that. So he would recite 'Mamba Mentality' every morning upon waking up at 5:00 to go trai