a number of themes were identified when examining the participants' responses. below are a couple that are most significant and impactful.

Experiences with “Othering” at SKMC

“The most othering I have experienced up to date has been in medical school, where I am the only person in my class with my background (as a Dominican immigrant woman). When topics of racial disparities have come up in class discussions or racist metrics that are still in place at our institution, it has often felt isolating. Sometimes speaking up takes so much energy and work.”

“I've felt bothered by my own peers - where whenever I bring up issues that are especially pertinent to marginalized communities, they tune me out and talk and walk over me. Many of the times, they do not realize the impact and emotional burden that they put on me when they do things like that in classrooms and outside.”

“Entering medical school, I started to realize I wasn’t as comfortable in predominantly cis-het spaces as I’d thought...I still feel unnecessarily self-conscious about my label in many spaces. I’m back to worrying that straight men will think I’m flirting with them, or that people secretly view me as ‘other’.

Some days this feels like an emotional burden, but other days I feel empowered to be so “different” from the rest of my class – taking up space and making space for others like me.”

The Importance of Being Here

"I realized when organizing the schools first ever LGBTQ+ mentorship program that there really aren’t many openly queer doctors… [I] remembered how often I was the only LGBTQ+ person in a room or in a group. It freaked me out, because for a moment it amplified these feelings of 'other' that I wasn’t used to. Now, I’ve re-channeled that realization towards pride. Pride that I’m part of the growing community of queer doctors.

This means a lot for me in my dream to work in pediatrics. The community of young, LGBTQIA+ individuals is growing rapidly. Having a doctor that’s gay will provide a safe space to talk about the unique health concerns of the LGBTQIA+ community."

"I'm interested in pursuing neurosurgery as a career, a field that has an extreme amount of work to do in terms of gender and racial diversity… It's scary to not see people that look like me in the field or people that share my background. This has made it hard to speak up at times and its taken (and still taking) a lot of work on my end to express myself in these spaces without feeling like I am saying or doing too much…I crave to see/meet a Black or Latinx female identifying neurosurgeon in the field. I hope that one day I can be that person for an up and coming medical student. "

“My identities give me the motivation and the driving factors to continue doing the work that I am doing so that I can provide care for patients throughout my medical career with a unique perspective, or a different perspectives where the 'majority' identity will not be able to understand. It gives me the ability to interact with people and provide care with folx that share identities with me, and be able to provide them care that I know are appropriate for them, because I know what it’s like being in their position.”

“Occupying this space illustrates how much work needs to be done to increase the diversity of the student body at SKMC and beyond because I am a privileged, middle-class, cis-gendered Black woman that was able to enter medical school. Medicine needs to be occupied by more folks that are not privileged who can actually start speaking on many of the topics of cultural competency and diversity/inclusion that we strive to talk about. “

"I feel really proud to have achieved getting into medical school and to me that means having the privilege to learn medicine but also be a resource for other students looking to do the same. When I was considering applying to medical school it felt like very foreign concept and questioned if that was really possible...Now I find talking to prospective students, giving them advice and serving as a connection so rewarding and enjoyable. I hope in the future I can be a mentor and open doors for students with similar challenges."