To Dr. Selby,
I accept your decision to not hire me as a scribe.
I am writing you this letter to say something I have not been able to say until now—I am a good doctor, I made a mistake, and I have spent coming up on three years paying the consequences.
I was born in Chico. Dr. M caught me. Oldest of 5. Single mom. We grew up in Chapmantown. Growing up we often had power cut because of unpaid bills. The fridge was empty (in fact, it was unplugged once and set outside to be sold—it sat out front most of that summer). Ended up in foster care. Back then, things were painful. They still are, the memories that is.
Somehow I excelled in school. Graduated high school at 16. Went to college (while working 30 hours a week), then took a prestigious position (to this kid it was anyways) at Vanderbilt doing drug discovery research. I worked 3 years there. Monday through Friday, 8–5 at Vanderbilt, Monday through Thursday 6–9:30 at Tennessee State University, working on my prerequisites in order to sit for the MCAT and apply to medical school. I look back on those years with pride. Such dedication, such perseverance I had.
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Miraculously, I was accepted to UC Davis, School of Medicine, Class of 2017. From 2013–2017 I lived, breathed, slept, and slept medicine. Beyond the basic requirements, I (in medical school) spent every possible hour shadowing the cardiothoracic surgeons. Morning report, rounds, clinic, but also surgery. A luckier person I’m not sure exists, such was my gratitude to be training to become a physician.
During those years I married a classmate, and in 4th year, we had the first of our three daughters. Annie Josephine. She is a special human. Her mom went into OB/Gyn. I decided that, given my desire to go into whatever rotation I was on at the time, rural family medicine was where my passion burned hottest.
In residency we had our second daughter. Imogen Lee. What a special human she is, too. I was picked to be chief resident my last year. After intern year, with my medical license now, I spent long weeks as a resident but every day off I had, in order to pay for childcare, I had to moonlight.
We made it. We finished residency. Whereas my co-residents (all of them) took weeks to several months off following residency, I graduated Friday, took Boards Saturday, and began work Monday, a 24 hr shift on my own in a critical access hospital. I remember every second of that first shift.
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That first year out, I found myself as one of two town physicians—90–100 hour weeks, every week—when I felt needed and a providing husband and father. The work was difficult. I went to med school at Davis, residency, too, but I learned to be a good physician in rural Eastern Shasta County at a tiny hospital. I, fresh out of residency, soon became chief of staff. I covered the long-term care unit. I worked (2) 24 hour ER shifts a week. Hospitalist 7 days on, 7 days off. Managed hospice patients 3–4 days of clinic a week. House calls, too.
In a flash, an instant it seems, I had become the doctor I dreamed of becoming. I gave it all I had. Which caused our divorce. Which then saw me dive even more into work. Now I began going in anytime a clinic patient was in the ER, or inpatient I’d manage them regardless of whether I was Hospitalist that week. I practiced good, honest, meaningful medicine. The hours were brutal, but I leaned in when I should have stepped back some.
As I went on, I began relying on Ritalin. Then more. I was on Ritalin since college, even diagnosed and given Ritalin as a child but my mom never really took us to doctor’s visits. I never took more than rx’d all those years. But I did.
Then at one point I made an egregious error. I prescribed my sister Ritalin. After which a former partner, hurt by our break up, reported that to the medical board. This was nearly (3) years ago.
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Since then I have been unemployed, had to sell my dream home, surrendered my medical license, and while I’ve proudly worked hard to make things right, hard to prove I am not the man written about online. Not entirely. I lost it all. I paid severely. I am paying still.
And yet, that hour long conversation with Sharon this week inspired me. I do want to be a physician. I am a Spanish-speaking, good, reliable, kind and honest and trustworthy medical doctor. No patients were harmed. I never did wrong by a patient. Never. I lost a three month old after coding her for too long, so incapable of letting Olive go. Cried like a baby. But it was just the first hour of my 24 that day. I wiped my tears, tucked in my scrub top, and went right back in.
I delivered babies there. I admitted my friends, neighbors, and even in-laws to long-term care, to inpatient when ill, and several times, very close friends to hospice. I showed up that Monday two days after graduating residency bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Yet here I am. Unable to even find work as a scribe.
No sir, I did not write this to ask for you to reconsider. I write this to say thank you for, along with April, making me see that it is a physician that I want to be. I don’t know how but I am going to become a doctor, again.
I’m not innocent. I did a wrong thing. Must a man lose everything? I have. I don’t know how but I am going to become a doctor, again.
You have a large, efficient, and respected clinic in our community. You work hard. You do good work. April said a lot in that hour. Enough for me to pick up this pen and write you a few words. I’m not innocent. I did a wrong thing. Must a man lose everything? I have. Must a man keep his head up, get help, stay on the right track and keep on going? I am, I have, I am and I will always keep going.
It’s who I am. Just can’t see it on Google.
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Best,
Tommy
