My wife gave me the good news two hours ago that she had been elected a senior
partner at the Kaiser Permanente Group (www.kp.org). Over 100 of her medical colleagues
voted unanimously to elect her a senior partner.
This is a proud moment
for Elena. It is a honour that few doctors in the medical group
receive.
Elena had to overcome some incredible odds to reach this moment.
She came to the USA in February, 2001. Despite the fact that she was a doctor of
16 years experience and a board-certified oncologist, she found that her
credentials had no value in the USA. She had to literally start over from
scratch.
Her first job was as a medical assistant at a clinic in one of
the most violent parts of Oakland, California. She had to ride the bus and
subway 3 hours per day to get to this clinic that served poor people. In her
next job, Elena worked at the Ravenswood Clinic in East Palo Alto, California.
This is another very dangerous area with many shootings,robberies,rapes, and
murders. Elena gave medical care to the poorest and most vulnerable people in
society.
While working as a medical assistant, she took three rigorous
and highly-competitive tests given to all US medical school graduates. Only 20%
of the foreign medical graduates score high enough on these tests to qualify for
a medical residency. Elena surprised everyone and made scores in the top 5% of
all medical school graduates in the USA. These high scores put Elena up with
graduates of Harvard Medical School and Stanford Medical School.
After
passing all of these tests, Elena had to go through a rigorous selection process
for a medical residency program. 998% of US medical school graduates are
accepted to such programs. Only 20% of foreign medical school graduates are
accepted for such residency programs.
Elena's dream was to do a residency
program at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in San Francico. Much to her surprise, she
was accepted.
On 1 July, 2003 at age 42, Elena began a 3-year medical
residency program. All of the other people accepted were 15-16 years younger
than her. Elena went through a rigorous 3-year program. I describe as hell. The
worst was several thrity hour work weeks in the Intensive Care Unit over a two
week period.
It was a proud day in June, 2006 when Elena graduated from
the program. She was offered a job in the Spanish Module at Kaiser Permanente.
Elena thrived in her new job. She made junior partner. She then was
promoted to senior partner yesterday.
She is very modest and says it is
no big deal.
Elena is an incredible lady who has been overcoming
impossible obstacles all her life.
Life takes us in many strange directions and wonderful discoveries. It never turns out the way we thought it would.
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