episode 4: stephanie diegue

December 23, 2020

“The only person I am guaranteed to grow old with is me, so I’m just gonna be who I like.” -Stephanie Diegue

I went to the hospital with strep when I was seven, and I felt like I was on that ship from Star Trek. In a hospital, once you walk in you feel this energy that says, “things are happening.” I tend to be drawn to situations where I am around a lot of people at once, seeing people and life moving by me across the landscape.

My opinion is that when people agreed to live in communities, and no longer were nomadic hunters and gatherers, we were agreeing that in somethings I have to trust you and you have to trust me. I was raised to see that what I do doesn’t only matter in my life but to those around me. I grew up on Long Island in a small neighborhood where you could rely on your neighbors for support. When someone new moved in, we would “cookie them” as a welcome. When I moved to Boston I found out that this was not something everyone normally does. In my big family and Haitian culture, we value the social collective. I was also taught to value stability, “the tried and true.” As a result, I tend to be more risk-averse. For many in my local community, these values were a driver toward the stability and compassion of jobs in healthcare. So while my wish to enter a field dedicated to promoting the wellness of others was of little surprise to my family, the pursuit to become a doctor was one example of how I was never quite comfortable basing the majority of my decisions on what is traditionally done, or the road most traveled.

I am the ninth of my maternal grandmother’s 21 grandchildren. The whole family lives in New York, always together. I can be a very social person, but compared to some of my sisters, I am considered reserved.

I always knew I wanted to explore new places and find home wherever the next stop on my journey was. While I love seeing my family and everyone back home, I like to create my home where my things and I currently are in life. When people enter my space, although it's a mess of stuff, it's sentimental and it screams “me.” I don’t have art unless it is made by someone I know, because I want to be surrounded by the things that represent what I have done in my life and the interactions I have had. It's the interactions you have with others that truly make the most mundane things exciting, a lesson that became clear while working in events management through college. You cannot guess how many times I gave directions to the same bathroom, but every time it was with a different person, at a different time, and it became its own exciting new experience. That is another driver for me toward healthcare, and excitement to meet my next patient.

I like to try new things and seek new connections. In high school, I focused on experiences. I played on teams for tennis, softball, basketball, and track. I was in the poetry club and even founded our school’s ecology club. To this day, when I go to the city on Thanksgiving, I can’t avoid re-living the struggle of carrying a sousaphone, you know the big tuba-looking instrument with the giant bell that weighs about 40lbs, for five hours when I performed in the Macy’s parade as part of my school’s marching band. I’d played the flute from 3rd to 9th grade, one of the lightest instruments until my band’s sousaphone section graduated and the band needed people to step up. I remember school for the times like that weekend staying in a nice hotel, and doing the typical New York things that New Yorkers never do with my band.

While I was certain I wanted to pursue medicine, I was not prepared to apply to medical school after graduating undergrad. I took a few gap years to continue exploring various interests and learning from meeting new people. I worked as a banquet supervisor at a hotel, random task-rabbit-type jobs, and spent the most time in clinical diagnostics. I say “molecular diagnostics is my bartending, it’s just what I know to do.” I was able to fill my time with living the life I wanted. I feel good that I waited to go to medical school. I didn’t want to spend my early 20s with textbooks or miss out on the experiences that later would not have been available to me, or not have had the time to understand myself before being consumed by a future in medicine. One thing that hasn’t changed since starting at NYMC is my readiness to plan another vacation using my handy travel books (not google)!

Physicianship represents a career where I feel most empowered to continue doing what matters to me most. Medicine allows you to work universally, and with each new destination comes new opportunities to care for those around you, as part of your community. I tend to argue about this a lot, but I believe that the individual interactions we have with others cannot be replaced by statistics. This is because no person is a statistic. I can not assume that a random person on the street is like “most people.” Just the same, while with repetition our paths may seem to grow mundane, I’m excited to find what lies in the unpredictability and novelty of every interaction that awaits me.

What is your morning routine?
I have always been obsessed with the time. I am a pretty good sun-dialer in the summer. I wake up at 7:37am, its the best time to wake up. I have somehow bargained my way there based on when I needed to leave the house. No clue why I picked it, but it's symmetrical. The best time to nap is 3pm.

Are you a planner?
I love planning. To not feel like I am studying all the time, I use planning as a way to take a break. It helps me remember what I need to do next. To remember, I have to write it down somewhere. If I need to change something I make a revision, but I always have my original plan to look back to.

You said everything in your room screams Stephanie, can you tell us an example?
My can of WD40 for my bike chain! I love my bicycle. That’s one thing I miss about Boston, I would bike most places. I like the small town feel. I would bike from Malden to Jamaica Plain, from most North to most South, in like an hour and fifteen. Living here in the country, you can bike for an hour and feel like you didn’t go anywhere.

Any idea what you want to do specialty-wise?
Not really but I have interests. I like the ideas of certain specialties, but the ‘Day in the Life” is just as important. I like the idea of something in Geriatrics. I like getting advice from older people, as you get older you stop caring about all the little things you used to stress about and that's what makes you cool. I love that attitude, they’ve decided what is important in life. Its so clear and definitive to them. I love how every person has found a different set of things that are important with the same amount of time. Also, I feel my relationship with technology is similar to theirs!

Given you are not an avid user of the newest tech, how do you feel about how rapidly technology is becoming inseparable from us?
My first smartphone I got was in 2019, and I mainly use it as a TV now that I don’t have a big one in my living room. It was only recently that I made my first instagram account. I don't feel a need to always have my life observed or observe that of others. I find my life to be interesting enough. Overall, technology is important, especially in medicine where we are using it to get better at saving lives. I just wish there was an ability to “opt-out” of certain aspects without missing out. If I wasn’t on facebook I wouldn’t have found my last apartment for $575/month! I will, however, still continue being a great map reader and use my phone mostly to watch my old-timey TV.