What the Women in My Life Have Taught Me About Becoming a Doctor
As we move into Women’s History Month, following a month of reflecting on Black history and legacy, I’ve found myself thinking deeply about the women who came before me. I
n February, I recently travelled to Brazil, where I visited Salvador, Bahia; a city with one of the largest African diasporic influences outside of the African continent where history, culture, and ancestry live in the streets. The city has been made globally recognizable by artists like Michael Jackson, yet its story runs far deeper than popular culture.
During one of my tours through Salvador, I found myself standing in front of the medical school where the first Black woman in Brazil, Maria Odília Teixeira, studied medicine and graduated in 1909. She went on to become the first Black female professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia just five years later, teaching obstetrics, a woman undeniably ahead of her time.
As a Black woman in medicine, discovering this part of history made me pause. I wondered how much the women and ancestors before me had to endure so that I could stand where I stand today not only as a visitor, but as someone walking a path in medicine they once had to fight to enter.
Not long after, I found myself sitting in a Black ancestral healing circle, listening to older Black women share stories about infertility, pregnancy, postpartum, and the realities of navigating healthcare systems that continue to neglect them. Their words carried pain, strength, and wisdom, and I couldn’t help but think about how closely medicine, womanhood, and ancestry are connected.
As a woman still in training, not yet at the stage of thinking about pregnancy or motherhood for myself, it felt as though I was receiving something sacred; oral tradition, lived experience, and wisdom being passed down in real time. So much of our history as Black people has constantly been interrupted, displaced, or erased. To sit in that circle felt like reclaiming something; like rebuilding a bridge to knowledge that once flowed freely between generations of women.
As March began, my maternal grandmother called to wish me a happy new month, and my paternal grandmother moved in with my family so we could care for her; just as she once cared for me as a baby. Around the same time, I watched my mother and her friends come together to care for, and eventually bury, one of their closest friends who had been battling breast cancer. Witnessing the way they showed up for one another through illness, grief, and loss revealed a depth of love that exists in female friendships; women carrying each other through life’s hardest moments.
My mother’s sister being there during that time, after nearly ten years of living apart, softened my mother’s grief in a way only a sister can. Watching their bond; their laughter, shared memories, and quiet strength; showed me and my sisters that sisterhood has a way of holding us up when life feels heavy.
These moments made me realize how much of who I am comes from the women around me and has healed me in a way I didn’t expect. Becoming a doctor has never felt like an individual achievement. It is layered, inherited, and communal. It carries the hopes, sacrifices, and prayers of the women who raised me, prayed for me, shared their stories with me, and believed in possibilities they themselves may not have had the chance to pursue. They raised families while quietly pushing through barriers, often without recognition, so that the next generation could have choices they did not.
For many immigrant families, the journey into medicine is not only about career goals. It is about legacy, opportunity, and the belief that the next generation can go further. Parents often carry dreams for their children long before those children understand the weight of those dreams. At times, those dreams can feel like pressure. But more often, they come from sacrifice, hope, and a desire for their children to live lives that feel secure, respected, and expansive.
As a daughter pursuing medicine, there are moments when expectations feel overwhelming and the path feels uncertain. But there are also moments when I realize that simply being here, in medical school, carries meaning far beyond myself. I am walking through spaces my mother and grandmother never had access to, and spaces where women like Maria Odília Teixeira once had to fight to belong.
My ancestors and the women in my life may not have walked the halls of a medical school. They may not know the intricacies of admissions committees, interview formats or residency applications. But they know sacrifice. They know prayer. They know what it means to leave home so their children could have more.
And maybe that, too, is a kind of medicine.
From a Medical Student Who’s Been There
Adesua Egbase
Storytelling & Content Writer | Healthcaring Differently
Senior Editor: Dr. Onye Nnorom
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