Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Rasheed Ivey( continued)
Saturday school was the time that formed his ideas of becoming a physician.“ I think during that time I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I didn’ t meet my first black doctor until I was 16. Dr. Gambro, he was a pediatrician, and he was a straight shooter. I liked his style, and I said to myself,‘ follow him; be a doctor’. I want to be like that because it was like talking to one of your uncles and I told him then I wanted to be a doctor and I kind of said it in a flippant kind of way. And he was serious and asked me,‘ why are you laughing?’ You need to think about that,’” he cautioned.
Dr. Ivey’ s undergraduate years were spent at LaVerne University.“ I was an athlete. I didn’ t go the pre-med route. I thought I wanted to do something else based on the athletics and the commitment for that. But you know, Destiny had a way of wrapping back around college. God. For me, I felt like He knew where I was supposed to be.” The young man turned back around to medicine.
Dr. Ivey initially was on his way to Xavier University in New Orleans, but his family just couldn’ t afford it.“ I stuck around because California was throwing more money at me,” he joked. He majored in psychology and ran track.“ I enjoyed that. I worked at all that good stuff. But you know, those years in college really built my confidence after people told me that my A’ s in the Compton school district would be C’ s in college, and all this other stuff. I didn’ t absorb that. I worked my butt off. And once I saw that, I knew I could do it. Then the question really popped in my head like well, if I could do this, maybe I can be a doctor. That started the journey, and it was about nine years in between me graduating from undergrad and me matriculating into medical school.
“ I think I was the fourth or fifth oldest in my class. We had a couple that were a year or two older than me that were also career changers. Along the way, I worked. I had other careers: working for the probation department, teaching. I went back to the Compton Unified school district and taught in the interventional Education Department.” He worked with at risk students, and those identified as at risk, teaching them science and math. He also taught chemistry lab at Cal State Dominguez.
“ I did building inspections, you name it, to make ends meet. But all the while I was still studying for the MCAT and trying to get into medical school.” Along the way he earned a master’ s degree in biology, and was able to publish.“ In hindsight, all those things at the time, I was like,‘ man, they’ re just holding me up’. And it kind of hurt not to be getting in to med school. I applied to medical school three times before I got in, thinking‘ I’ m doing all this stuff’.
“ I thought it was for naught, but actually it was it was a major blessing to have had to take what I thought were detours. They were actually catapults that I didn’ t see that was being added to my arsenal. I was able to publish under some well-known researchers at Drew, including Dr. Theodore Friedman. And I never thought I’ d publish in a basic science lab. My high school didn’ t even have science lab. A beaker and all that stuff was foreign to me. This man offered me the opportunity and I took it and with his support, so finally got into medical school in 2014. And, you know, all those bumps and things, they were all for a reason. They make you stronger,” he said. He also acknowledges CDU Associate Dean Dr. Daphne Calmes for her support and encouragement along the way.
“ I’ ve always been somewhat of a serious person,” he said.“ They always make the joke about medical school that it’ s like drinking from a fire hydrant because of the information. It’ s not that the information is hard. It’ s just that so much of it comes at one time. They always would say,‘ you’ re getting about a semester’ s worth of information, in about a week and a half.’”
He is in postgraduate year three, in anesthesia.“ I started out in surgery. I did not match into anesthesia when I first applied. I ended up matching into surgery, a preliminary spot for a year at Harbor and I’ ve got a great deal of love for those folks over there. The attendings in the surgery department especially, because they are people that really are supporting you. They don’ t have to say a lot, you just see the bricks being built around you.
“ I’ ll have a clinical role in anesthesia. And I think I’ m having these bigger dreams now. One of the things I would like to do, I think at this point, and I’ m still mulling over it, I’ d like to open a school,” he added.
“ I come from a family of cowboys, we all own horses. One thing my uncle used to say that he passed on was,‘ circle the wagons, circle the wagons. And I still hear him.”
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 38