After graduation, Rachel Fischer joined the Peace Corps and went to Nepal to be a community female health coordinator
School of Medicine
By Andrew Kirk
Media Credit: Stephen Holt
Rachel Fischer, a second-year medical student, sits in on her cardiovascular physiology course in the School of Medicine building Wednesday.
On the weekends, Rachel Fischer likes to take 50-mile bike rides.
Her affinity for long treks parallels the long and winding road she followed to find herself a second-year medical student at age 36.
Like many undergraduates, Fischer as a young college student didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. She decided to follow her interest in writing and get a bachelor's degree in journalism. Wanting to enter the corporate world, but not liking finance, she used her degree to pursue public relations.
While working for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, she felt like something was lacking. The job exposed her to careers in public health, which interested her more than communication. So she changed gears and pursued a graduate degree in public health.
After graduation, she joined the Peace Corps and went to Nepal to be a community female health coordinator, teaching women about basic health and hygiene. She loved it, but her plan hit a snag after she contracted several bacterial infections in her intestines and came home after only four months.
She moved from Georgia to the West and worked in public health.
That field exposed her to health-care professions and she realized how much she enjoyed interacting with patients, and she thought about changing directions again.
While applying for the University of California at Berkeley's public health doctorate program, the interviewer told Fischer, "I get the feeling that your heart really isn't in this." She realized it was true and made the decision to pursue a profession in medicine.
"It hit me, like a calling," she said.
She said she came home from work one day and told her then-boyfriend, now-husband Mike she wanted to go to medical school.
He supported her as she went back to school for two and a half years and took the Medical College Admissions Test.
She says she finally feels like she's on the right road. "I can't imagine doing anything else," she said.
Fischer said she admires her younger classmates in their early 20s for their determination to study medicine, but said she suspects some of them don't really have their hearts in it. Although she is older than many of her classmates, she said she isn't the only one who has worked for several years before returning to school to become a doctor. There are also many women in the program with children, she said.
Being a woman with a family is an added difficulty for many medical students, she said. It's hard to focus wholly on her schooling when she's worried about home matters.
There are even mothers in the program who work while studying.
Despite the variety in her class, she said something they all have in common is their passion for medicine.
"They're such a dynamic group of people. I walk into class sometimes and feel the energy," she said.
Her own busy schedule includes getting up around 5:30 am to work out in the gym and going to class between about 8 a.m. and noon. She participates in special-interest groups during lunch and then goes home to study between two and 10 hours every day.
In her spare time she gardens, bicycles, spends time with her husband and 1-year old puppy, Bella.
Fischer said she isn't sure yet where her final destination will be at after graduation. She's still considering from about six medical specialties to concentrate in. "I know I'll have a hard time choosing. I like being open to different things," she said.
akirk@chronicle.utah.edu
