I'll be forever grateful to my mom for teaching me to be the kind of Mom she was. If you still have your mom (and she wasn't terrible and toxic because there are those) give her a call or a hug today. For those who don't, I understand. Happy Mother's Day! 2/2

I ended up where I needed to be. 21 years after that fateful match, I am an academic pathology chair. I found what I love and I made it work for me.

While deciding to do with my life that night, I began to think about pathology. I liked it. I understood it. And with that, I decided to scramble into pathology. I had no idea that I was making one of the best decisions of my entire life.

On Black Monday, as I remember it, I went to the computer lab to check my email. The message said, “Dear Ms. Fitzhugh, we regret to inform you…” I never read the rest. I broke into tears. It felt like my life was over. I had never failed at anything in my life but I failed to match.

I was not ok. I was told at one program that it would be hard to rank me over other Black applicants because I had good enough credentials to get into “majority programs”. I was told by another program that I should rank them high because I probably wouldn’t match anywhere else.

Interestingly enough, I did a pathology elective in my 4th year. I also got to spend time in pathology during my orthopedic oncology week (yes, I wanted to be an orthopedic oncologist). I was fascinated by the pathology, but with 18 programs ranked I figured I would be ok.

I did orthopedic research. I did orthopedic electives in my fourth year of medical school. I really should have been fine.

Now before someone jumps in with my lack of qualification, my board scores were in line with other male ortho applicants and my grades were great despite my mother dying in my second year of medical school.

I went to medical school thinking I was going to be an orthopedic surgeon. This was the early 2000s and at this time there were very few women and people of color who matched into ortho.

That’s nice, and I knew that. All that says is he believed in science once some time ago.

This!!!!!

I’m no lawyer but much of what I have read spells many of these executive orders to be illegal.