About Me
My name is Mia Jeanty and I am a senior Chemistry student at the University of South Carolina. I will be graduating with Leadership Distinction in Community Service. My plan after I graduate is to attend medical school. I have wanted to become a physician since I chose a health science path at my high school. I became a certified nurse assistant and fell in love with interacting with patients. I worked mostly in assisted living facilities, and I could see the difference I made in my patient’s lives as I cared for them. At that point, I knew I wanted to become a physician so I can care for others and change their lives. From the moment I arrived at USC, I jumped into shadowing physicians and volunteering in the Intermediate Intensive Care Unit. In the IICU, I cared for people who were extremely ill. This taught me how to become more empathic. Some days I would just sit with a patient and hold their hand and listen to them. Sometimes this is all a patient needs when everyone around them is telling them what to do while they are connected to a bunch of tubes and wires. Not only do I want to cure ailments, I want to increase a patient’s quality of life. I have had an internship in biomedical engineering at a hospital for the past year and have fallen even more in love with the medical field. It allows me to utilize my problem solving skills. Every week, I do not know what I am walking into—it is my job to assist in fixing any equipment that encounters a patient. So, if anything goes down and stops working, we must problem solve to fix the issue in a timely manner. This internship showed me what happens in the background in a hospital. This has provided me skills that will be useful in my goal of attending medical school and becoming a physician. I will have advanced knowledge of the equipment I will be surrounded with every day. If something happens to a machine in an emergency, I will be able to solve the issue promptly. At my internship, I work with mostly the equipment in operating rooms. I have been able to view many general, cardiothoracic, and orthopedic surgeries. My favorite surgeries to shadow are general surgeries. From a general surgeon, I learned that every day and every patient was different. He said that there is never a dull moment. This is exactly what I want in a career. I’ve watched several general surgeries from hernia repairs to gallbladder removals, which I have found the most intriguing. I have had the opportunity to sit in and practice using a Da Vinci surgical system, which used for robotic assisted surgeries. Once I become a physician, I plan of serving low income communities in the United States as well as in developing countries. I served as the President of CURE at South Carolina during my junior and senior year and the Treasurer during my sophomore year. CURE is a non-profit organization that raises money for CURE hospitals located in several developing countries around the world that provide surgeries to children with no cost to them or their families. Not only do I raise money, I raise awareness for the huge issue of the lack of healthcare in developing countries. I would like to work with non-profit organizations to bring quality healthcare to those countries but also areas in our own country that suffer from a lack of affordable healthcare. Preventable illnesses are inflicting those around us who cannot afford the simple healthcare. This should not be the case at all, and I plan on doing something about that. |
You have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” |
One of the most important abilities for a physician is to be a leader. They lead the rest of the team to save lives. I believe a strong leader recognizes that every part of a team is necessary for success. As the president of my organization I rely heavily on the participation of by my other executive members to run the organization smoothly. My first year as president, it was just me and my current vice president in executive roles. I turn my organization of about five members to an organization with almost thirty that raises about $1000 each year. I could not have done it without each person in my organization who all had different tasks that contributed to the end goal. Like everyone says, teamwork makes the dream work! I have also had leadership roles as a Service Saturday Site Leader where I lead a group of students on Saturdays to different service sites around Columbia. I also serve as a Day Director of Waverly After School Program where I bring a group of USC students to an afterschool program at a transition shelter for children whose parents cannot afford child care. I help the kids with their homework as well as mentor them to be the best they can be and encourage them to accomplish any goal they have.
My community service experiences have taught me valuable key insights. My first key insight reflected how my experience as a Day Director at a transition shelter. This position revealed to me that severe deprivation in America is multidimensional. I was able to use concepts I learned in my SOCY340 course to understand that problems such as poverty and homelessness should not be considered solely individual problems. They should be seen as social problems because they are a result of flaws in society and they reflect a large portion of our society. My second key insight reflected my experience as a Service Saturday Site Leader. Serving sites in different parts of Columbia allowed me to visualize the segregation that is still prevalent today. In my SOCY 340 course, we discussed that segregation still exists. However, I didn’t realize the extent to which it exists until we reviewed a map that displayed the location of everyone who lived in the U.S. as well as their race. My third key insight reflected my international service through a medical mission trip to Nicaragua.
My community service experiences have taught me valuable key insights. My first key insight reflected how my experience as a Day Director at a transition shelter. This position revealed to me that severe deprivation in America is multidimensional. I was able to use concepts I learned in my SOCY340 course to understand that problems such as poverty and homelessness should not be considered solely individual problems. They should be seen as social problems because they are a result of flaws in society and they reflect a large portion of our society. My second key insight reflected my experience as a Service Saturday Site Leader. Serving sites in different parts of Columbia allowed me to visualize the segregation that is still prevalent today. In my SOCY 340 course, we discussed that segregation still exists. However, I didn’t realize the extent to which it exists until we reviewed a map that displayed the location of everyone who lived in the U.S. as well as their race. My third key insight reflected my international service through a medical mission trip to Nicaragua.