The Complete Transcripts
The Second Interview
Dr. Wallace at the Great Wall of China
Michael once again drops me off, and, once again, Dr. Wallace meets me at the door with a smile. Lizzie is napping in the living room, so Dr. Wallace and I sit down in the kitchen.
Porter: This is Sarah Porter, Hollins Class of 2007, interviewing Dr. Jennifer Wallace, Hollins Class of 1992, second interview, 19th March, 2006.
Wallace: All right, as we’re picking up today, hopefully it’ll be a little quieter today, ‘cos my daughter’s napping [laughter from both]. But, um, uh, we were just reminiscing about that even back in the early ‘90s, we didn’t have computers in our rooms. One of my roommates was actually the very first person, um, one of the first people in my class to have their very own personal computer in their dorm room.
P: Really?
W: Yeah, but it wasn’t hooked up to the internet, but we typed papers on it, it was huge, yeah, it was basically a word processor at that point. Um, but we were all still typing papers and stuff like that, we didn’t even have cable, in our dorm rooms. Now I know you guys have cable, and everybody has a computer, and, it’s just, it’s really neat. And it’s, it’s a long time coming, ‘cos I think, well, Hollins can be very progressive in some ways, but it kind of lags behind in others. [laughs] And so, like, cable was huge, I think we got cable the very next year, I think they wired all the rooms for cable the very next year.
P: Would you like to expand on that comment, why you think that Hollins lags behind in some areas while it goes forward in others?
W: Well, I think that Hollins is so rooted in tradition that they don’t, they don’t wanna change things that are working, and I think that they really value that good broad-based liberal-arts education, which, you know, many people think isn’t valuable nowadays in our high-tech, fast-paced, you know, if you wanna be an IT person, you just major in computers and math and science and that’s it, and, they don’t really place a lot of value on learning English or studying, you know, uh, art history or something like that, there’s, there’s no value in it, and I think they’re very short-sighted, I think there’s tremendous value in that. Um, but, then again, Hollins has really taken, and it really started probably right before I came there, with taking the whole idea of, how can you preserve a woman’s college. Because nowadays there are so many single-sex colleges, um, the men’s colleges are almost extinct, and women’s colleges, you know, I don’t know what the number is now, I’m assuming it’s in the seventies or eighties is the number of women’s colleges left in the country, so each one’s trying to carve out their own niche, and I think in that way Hollins has been very progressive in sort of developing the, uh, Master’s programs and making them co-ed but keeping sort of the undergraduate women’s college campus feel, um, I really think that they’re, they’re really trying that, to navigate themselves well and set themselves up well for maintaining a, a single-sex education. [2:45] I mean, for myself, I came from a big public inner-city high school, I was in a co-ed high school, my high school graduating class was over a thousand people, so it was larger than the total [laughter from both] undergraduate class, everybody at Hollins, ‘cos when I was there, it was about eight hundred and fifty students, which is about undergrad, what it is now. And, so, for me to go from a large co-ed institution like that to a small women’s college was a, was a big change, but it was a change that I just sorta delved into, and I loved it from the very beginning, I know a lot of other of my classmates were in shock. Um, and, whenever I am talking to high school girls about where they want to go for college, ‘cos I work with high school kids all the time, you know, I tell them there is the opportunity to go to a single-sex school. Majority of girls in high school don’t wanna hear about it, but you know, for some, they go, uh, they never really thought about it, and I want to be able to preserve the number of colleges out there that do offer a single-sex education, ‘cos I think that they’re valuable, and I think that we really need to work on preserving both men’s and women’s colleges, you know, I think it’s a real shame that, really, I think there’s only one or two men’s colleges left in the country, uh, men should have the same choices that women have. Hmm, I, I guess it’s because women’s colleges {something something} hold on to that tradition and alumnae networks much more tightly, and men’s colleges too got a lot of challenges in the sixties with women’s, with the women’s movement, so a lot of them went co-ed then, but um, I would love to see more of them stay single-sex, because I’d like men to have the same choices that we have. So, you know, Hollins, I think the traditions are what keep people there and make us love it, but I also think us as alumnae need to realize that we do need to make some changes to go forward, and I know a lot of the alumnae were very, um, upset with the whole Hollins University concept, you know, it’s not Hollins College anymore, it’s Hollins University, which to you guys seems old hat, but to us, that was huge at my last reunion, that was all people talked about, it was huge.
P: Really?
W: Oh, my gosh. And, I thought, that’s silly, why worry about a name, Hollins is trying to market itself, in an environment which is very much anti-single-sex education, and, um, trying to promote itself so we can maintain that single-sex education, while maintaining a viable college. And, that’s a very delicate balance to, to sort of go on. But, even now some of my friends are so upset, we were young alums compared to the old ladies who graduated in the fifties and sixties but, you know, I mean, we, some of my friends, when we called to order something from the Hollins bookstore, they ask us, oh, do you want a Hollins College product or do you want a Hollins University product? And I’m always like, I don’t care! [laughs] Just give me something that says “Hollins” [laughter from both], that’s all I care about! But I mean a lot of the alums feel very strongly about that. They really do, which is just interesting, yeah, it’s very interesting, because now it’s just so common for you guys, it’s just been Hollins University. And I actually think that marketing it as Hollins University is gonna get more people interested in it [5:40]. It makes it sound more academic, it makes it sound bigger. Um, one of the, one of the people I’ve had the most conversation with about it is my mom, who’s not a Hollins alum, but she’s a Smith College alum, and she, uh, Smith in her day is like Hollins now. Um, I mean she even told me when I was looking at colleges, um, she said, if you want a college the way I describe Smith, and the way I remember Smith, you need to go to a Southern women’s college, Northern women’s colleges aren’t like that anymore. And, she was right, when I toured Smith it wasn’t the same Smith that she described to me when she was talking, and when I toured the women’s colleges I got that feel, again, and my mom was really, she told me, I want you, I’d love you to go to a women’s college and if you want to go to Smith that’s fine, but, I really do think that someplace like Hollins, Hollins and Mary Baldwin, those’ll be the places that are gonna be, feel to you much more the way I have, the relationship with Smith. And, uh, she was very anti-Hollins University [laughs], she just, it’s interesting, she’s like, why, you need the college name and, and, you know, ‘cos hers is Smith College and they have graduate programs and they’re doing just fine but every college needs to market itself a different way and you have to move forward, you have to be willing to change, or else you, you’re not going to succeed in this world.
P: So, [coughs] did you have any favorite traditions at Hollins [Wallace laughs], talk about that or—
W: I love them all, I [laughs] think those are the reasons why I loved Hollins so much, and even now I get excited when I get the e-mail saying it’s Tinker Day [both laugh]. Um, I, I just love the fact that there were the traditions there, I mean even, even silly things, like only seniors could walk on the grass on Front Quad, like everyone else had to stay on the sidewalks, and just those little things I think make such a unique community that really sort of binds itself together, I mean I love Tinker Day, we all would try to figure out what day it was gonna be because, back when I was doing Tinker Day, I don’t know if it’s the way it is now, if you had a test or something scheduled for Tinker Day, it was erased. You didn’t even have to take it. So I, it was a big deal [laughs] to try to figure out ‘cos you had to figure out whether or not you had to study for the test [laughs] or not, depending on whether or not it was Tinker Day and you, you’d actually like have spies in the President’s office going, is the President in today [Porter laughs], is she gonna be in this week, ‘cos a couple times she’d be traveling during the week, and, um, so we’d know, oh, she’s traveling this week so, no, it can’t be Tinker Day, so you have to like schedule like, if a paper was due, if you, if Tinker Day was that day, the day that the paper was due, you didn’t have to hand it in. It was just erased, and so we, it was a very big deal, and I love Tinker Day, I loved Hundredth Night, uh, Ring Night, actually went through a lot of revisions during my time because, for my first two years, when I was a freshman and a sophomore, Ring Night was basically hazing night, and basically it was, it, it wasn’t good but it was a bunch of girls getting other girls drunk for [laughs] basically a week straight and that’s what it was, and that had been the tradition for I dunno how long, I dunno how it evolved that way, and then, my year, when we were all gonna get our rings, they decided to really crack down on it. Um, and what was interesting was, in my entire class, there were only about five of us who, who didn’t drink during the Ring Night hazing stuff that goes on [Porter laughs], I was one of them, and it was only because I was on swim team and I was in training and I wasn’t allowed [both laugh], and so, but everybody else, um, everybody else got busted and, actually, the majority of my class couldn’t even participate in Ring Night, ‘cos everyone got busted for underage drinking.
P: Wow.
W: Yeah, and, um, and then after that the next year when we were the seniors, to, and we were Ring Nighting the juniors, it was just a different Ring Night, because of the experience before, you know, it was, um, it was, it was the same it just was different, you know, I mean the same type of thing and, but, it was much less hazing, I think that it was much more positive, you know, I wasn’t worried about getting drunk ‘cos I knew I wasn’t going to, but um, a lot of, uh, I just think it was a much more positive experience because they, they really got rid of the alcohol and I doubt they totally got rid of the alcohol even now but, yeah [both laugh], but they really, that was a big deal, they really cracked down my junior year and actually only five of us got our rings officially, on Ring Night, we actually had to, um, the party was cancelled and all of us in our Ring Night groups went out to eat at various restaurants and stuff off campus, it turned into an off-campus event, but it definitely, um, it was, it was definitely a weird thing, ‘cos I didn’t really experience a true Ring Night with the skits and all that stuff ‘cos it was all cancelled that night. But, um, but still, I mean it’s just those kind of traditions that’re just, they’re neat, you know, Founder’s Day [10:17]. Many colleges have Founder’s Day, but, no other college, well, I can’t say no other, but many other colleges don’t have the entire school actually turn up for it [laughs], you know, and, and, just those things are neat, and the whole graduation weekend is neat because most colleges, you know, your family shows up, you graduate, you leave, whereas at Hollins it’s a weekend-long event, where you’re going out to eat with your professors and you’re having, you know, all different festivities throughout the weekend and, it was really neat for my family to be able to experience that. And I think just, just, uh, every day things like being able to take your exams on your own, you know, with the Honor Code. I mean, that’s very, I tell my friends about that around here now, and they think, they can’t believe that, really people didn’t cheat? I’m sure people cheated, [laughs] I mean people are people, but the majority of them didn’t cheat, you know, and, and to be able to say that, and say that honestly, is, is really neat. So I mean that, for me, there wasn’t one experience that sorta stands out as sort of the whole Hollins experience of making you feel like you’re part of a group for that four-year period of time, um, I just think it’s, it’s wonderful, and I think that people that go to large public institutions, they don’t speak that way, about their college. You know, in med school, people in my med school class, a lot of them felt very passionate about med school, like that’s where they found themselves, and that’s, that was the most wonderful experience of their lives, ‘cos they were thrilled to only be one of a hundred-and-sixty in a class [Porter laughs], and I would look at them and go, uh, do you know that my largest class at Hollins was about forty people in Calculus 1? [Porter laughs] My next-largest class at Hollins was twenty people in Calculus 2 [Porter laughs], and then other than that I had like ten people in a class. And like for Bio-Chemistry I had three people in my class. [12:00] If you missed class, it was obvious. And you were taught by the professors, you know I mean I can remember professors, I can actually, um, a physics professor, uh, at the time, uh, he, I was struggling in physics, and I was taking calculus-based physics, and you have to take it for medical school, so I was just taking it for that, I had no real interest in learning physics. And, I spoke to him on a Friday, and I said, you know, I’m struggling with this homework, I know it’s due on Tuesday, can I make an appointment for your office on Monday so that we can work on it together. And he said, well, I’m free Sunday afternoon, you want to come over to my house [Porter laughs], lived on Faculty Row, and I said, okay, sure, so on Sunday afternoon I went over, his wife was baking cookies [Porter laughs] and [something] we sat at his kitchen table and worked on physics. I mean but, there’s no other large university that that would ever happen. You’d be taught by a TA in a class of two hundred people, you know, beginning physics, and, it’s stuff like that just makes Hollins so unique and, I think makes other small colleges too, I don’t think it’s just Hollins, but I think it’s just the smallness of it that that makes it such a unique experience and everyone teases me because, since I’m employed by the Penn State Milton Hershey Med Center, technically, and I’m contracted to work at the school, one of the benefits of that is that my daughter can go to Penn State for free. And I’m like, I don’t want her to go to any big, large co-ed institution for free. I don’t care if she chooses Hollins or not, that’s her choice, but I do want her to go to a small college, whether it be single-sex or co-ed, ‘cos I think you get your money’s worth. It’s not just about the classes, it’s about developing your whole self and your whole person, and the large public universities can’t do that. And I mean in a place like Hollins, you’re basically guaranteed to graduate in five year, in four years. In public schools, you’re lucky to get out in five and a half. [13:47] So I really do think that in most public schools, you’re not really even gaining that much money benefit from it. ‘Cos you know, five and a half years of public school education is equivalent to four years of a Hollins education. And, um, I really do think that people get their money’s worth. People are always amazed when I tell them that my parents got copies of my grades, I dunno if that happens now at Hollins but when I was there, um, the thought was that whoever paid for your education, also got a copy of your grades, ‘cos it was their investment. And, I was never upset by that at all, I thought they were right, my parents are paying for this, they should know what they’re getting for [laughs] their money. And, I remember my friends were just, who didn’t go to Hollins, you know, just University of Maryland or someplace like that, were shocked—those are your grades! Well, they’re sort of mine, I earned them, but, my parents are really paying for them [both laugh], they’re kinda theirs. And I, I always, I always liked that about Hollins, I, I never had a problem with it, I think that small college feeling that really, you had, that feeling that people were looking out for you, people weren’t going to watch you slip through the cracks, you can’t slip through the cracks if you’re in a class with three people. It’s going to be pretty obvious when you’re not there and you’re not doing well.
P: So you’ve already talked about today a couple major things that happened during your time at Hollins, that affected the entire Hollins community. Can you think, can you remember anything else?
W: Uh, my junior year I was actually an RA, um, on, I worked, I was in a freshman dor, they had freshman and, upperclassmen dorms then, they were separated.
P: Yep, they still do that.
W: They still do that, yeah see for a while, my senior year they integrated everybody, and it didn’t work at all, because the freshmen just felt very disjointed, and of course your freshman year is when you lose the most amount of people, they’re gonna try out Hollins for a year and just be miserable and leave [15:37], but, I always thought them being all together was a good idea, ‘cos then they could all sort of support each other and realize that there’s a lot of other people going through the same thing and it would actually help with, with keeping people. [coughs] But in my junior year, I was an RA in a freshman dorm, over in Randolph, I was the third-floor Randolph RA And, that was the year that the U.S. invaded Iraq, for the first time, and actually a bunch of girls knew from boyfriends at home, who had gone into the military and now were over in Iraq. Now, none of my friends, you know, ‘cos my friends, we were all juniors at that time, so if they’d had a boyfriend, who would have been in the military, they would’ve broken up, you know, long before your junior year, usually. But these were all girls who were freshmen, was their first time away from home and now their boyfriends, who were the loves of their lives at the time, [Porter laughs] you know, were away in Iraq, and I, I can remember my floor being very emotional about it, and a lot of the freshmen being very emotional about it whereas the rest of us were like, what’s the deal? So we invaded Iraq, like it just didn’t affect us personally, the way it affected the freshman class, so I do remember that, that whole, I was only, we were only at war for, I think it was about two months, unlike the current situation in Iraq, but, I can remember a lot of the girls crying and being worried and sending care packages to Iraq and all that kinda stuff. So I do remember that, um, from my time at Hollins, but really that was a time in the U.S. when there wasn’t a lot going on, politically, as far as I can remember, again, I was in college, you were kind of insulated from everything, but, um, we were much more worried about things going on at Hollins than in the outside world, for the most part. Um, we also had, during my time there we had three separate Presidents. Uh, when I went, we had Paula Brownlee, who had been there for, at least five years, who was an older, um, grandmotherly isn’t the right word, but kind of a nurturing type of person. Um, and then she left, uh, to actually I think fulfill a job overseeing all liberal arts colleges in some way, it was like the Association of Liberal Arts Colleges or something like that in Washington, um, and she was very loved, she was a great President, at Hollins. And then we had an interim President, I can’t even remember his name, I feel so bad [both laugh]! Um, and he filled in during my junior year and then during my junior year I was actually on the interviewing committee, uh, to interview for, for Maggie O’Brien, um, who ended up, uh, becoming, we interviewed a lot of different candidates and Maggie ended up choosing to come to Hollins, and she was the President during my senior year, and she just brought a whole new life-force to Hollins, ‘cos she was young and invigorating, and Paula Brownlee was very talented and very good as this warm, nurturing President, um, Maggie was a much more the every woman’s woman, very approachable, she wanted people to come into her office and sit down and tell her what was going on. Um, she, she was always seen around campus, she had small children at the time and they were always running around, kids doing things. Her husband was very involved and, and she was very bright and very talented, and, uh, we were very excited to have her at Hollins, and I, I was very sad to see, when she left, she went on to a better job and that’s wonderful and we, we now have, have a, we’ve got the two other Presidents but one just very suddenly died, but, you know, Maggie really, I think changed Hollins a lot because she really brought a lot of youth to the cam, to the campus which was really nice. [19:00]
P: What was it like to be on the interviewing committee?
W: It was, it was, it was, it was a very big honor, by the time you’ve, you get to be a junior at Hollins you’re either someone who still is quiet and sort of is doing their own thing, or you’re someone who’s involved in absolutely every activity [Porter laughs]. I was someone who was involved in absolutely every activity, I mean at that point, I was involved with drama, I was involved with the swim team, I played softball, I played lacrosse, I was involved with the, um, Hollins Columns, the, the newspaper, um, I was an RA, I did a little bit of everything, um, and so I was asked to be on the interviewing committee, and, um, it was really unique, ‘cos it was a committee formed of both students and faculty, um we actually come through about, uh, ten to twenty resumes of different people, and here are these people who have done amazing things with their lives and we’re trying to calm it down to like the five people we want to ask to interview. And then we interviewed in different groups, so out of the five or six people that were asked to interview, um, we didn’t want to overwhelm them so the committee was like ten or twelve people. It was a committee of two students and usually about three faculty members who would actually interview the candidate. So, we, I probably interviewed two or three peop, two or three different candidates, and I happened to be on Maggie’s interviewing team. And, uh, it was very, at first you think, wow, they all look the same, some, their [somethings] are all the same on paper [Porter laughs], they’ve all done great things, you know, and, in different areas of study, but they’ve all done great things. And then, when you actually interview, the cream does rise to the top, the, that’s the truth, and, Maggie just, came in with so much enthusiasm and energy and this is what I do, she’d already done her research, knew a lot about Hollins, I think she herself had gone to a women’s college if I remember right, um, she hadn’t gone to Hollins but [coughs], she’d gone to a women’s college, so she understood a women’s college education and the importance of it. And, uh, um, she just wowed us, it was really obvious she was the top candidate, uh, within about five minutes of the interview starting, and we were really thrilled when she accepted, and it was, it was, she really, she did good things for the college, I think she was there too, too short a time, but, she definitely did some great things. And now I think she’s down at St. Mary’s College, uh, down in the, the eastern shore of Maryland, I’m not sure.
P: Yeah, I don’t know either.
W: Yeah.
P: Um—
W: But she’ll be just fine, she’s, she must have at least ten to fifteen more years in her career, I’m sure we’ll be hearing about her.
P: So, kind of, uh, veering off—
W: Yeah, that’s okay [laughs]!
P: Off-course a little bit, um, what did you want to be when you grew up when you were a child?
W: It’s funny because everyone in my family says, we knew you were going to be a doctor, you said you were going to be a doctor when you were five years old [Porter laughs]. Um, I, I mean, I’d always said I wanted to be a doctor, in reality when I was in high school I probably thought either a doctor or teacher. I knew I wanted to do something with families and kids, I’d always enjoyed little kids, as I’d said last night, and so I, I knew that, I didn’t know quite how but I knew that. And then, you know when you’re trying to pick your career, um, you really do look at things like, like, what, the hours, what are you going to be doing, what’s the pay, you almost have to juggle everything. And I thought I, very analytical person, so [laughs], and I was trying to pick and I liked biology and all, so I knew I was going to be either like a doctor or like a high school science teacher, like I just knew that that’s what I was gonna end up being, and I thought, you know what? I can always try to be a doctor [Porter laughs], and see how it goes, and if I’m totally miserable, I’ll already have a doctorate and I’ll be able to go teach [both laugh]. So I’m being very practical, um, I, I mean I [22:38], uh, that’s sorta the way that I chose my profession. Um, as far as pediatrics or not, it really just was through experimenting during the third and fourth years of med school, and, it really cemented my love of pediatrics, and I knew I wanted to work with kids, but, um, that really proved to me that that’s what I wanted to do. And it’s, I think medicine is so unique in that it really can enable you to choose, even though we’re all doctors, and we all made, we all took biology and chemistry and physics in college, we’re all very different people, I mean someone who’s an orthopedic surgeon is totally different from someone like me who’s a pediatrician. I think it’s really is that we all are Type A personalities [Porter laughs], if you compare us to the general population we’re all Type A, but I’m probably the most Type B Type A personality compared to all my friends who are doctors. So I think medicine really enables you to sort of pick, you know, if you like doing things with your hands you’re gonna be a surgeon. If you like talking to people you’re gonna be a psychiatrist, if you like kids you’re gonna be a pediatrician. If you like kids and doing things with your hands you’re gonna be a pediatric surgeon [Porter laughs], like there’s, there’s just, there’s, the opportunities are endless. If you like being in a lab you can be a researcher, or be a pathologist, um, if you really, um, wanna serve and do, you can do international health. You know, there’s just so many opportunities out there, as a physician you can really, if you really know yourself well, you can really pick a career that you can be really happy in. So for me, I, I always sorta knew, I was gonna be a doctor. It, it really, there was no, choosing, to do it. Um, I, I think my real choice came when I was in medical school, and, I was miserable after my first year, after, especially after going away to summer camp that summer, and coming back and looking at the second year and going, oh, do I want to do this again. For me, that was when the choice came, was really, do I want to stay and do this, or do I not. And, obviously I chose to stay, and, I think making that commitment was key. I think the other thing that was key, uh, was that, you know, when you go to medical school, you’ve gotten basically straight A’s in high school and college. You have to, to get into medical school. So you’re used to being perfect, and you’re used to working hard to being perfect, but, you know, you’re also, most people tend to be smart and so, yes, you’re working hard but it comes naturally to you too. When you get to med school, everybody there has gotten straight A’s [laughs], everybody there’s used to being perfect, and yet you’re still being graded on a curve, so some people have to get C’s. And, my first year I worked my tail off, and I really, um, I got almost straight A’s, but I was one hundred percent miserable. And I think going to summer camp that summer and making me sort of realize there is an outside world, you know, the world of medicine is not all-inclusive. There is an outside world. I thought, you know what, it’s okay to get C’s. C’s mean you pass. And C’s mean you’re gonna be a doctor. But, I had to give myself permission to do that. ‘Cos, at that point, you know, you’re worried about pleasing your family, and you know, you get your grades, you get your grades for yourself when you’re in college, but it’s also for your folks, you know, they’re usually the first people you call with them and that kinda stuff and, and really, for me to know, number one, I’m funding all this myself, I’m the person that’s paying, I’m the person that’s taking out all the loans, and this is for my profession and my future. If going away for a weekend means I get a C on a test, that’s okay. It’s an okay thing to get C’s, and once I gave myself permission not to be perfect, it made med school much more bearable. And I sort of, all that came to head at the beginning of my second year, and then once I’d made the commitment to stay, and once I made the commitment that it was okay to get B’s and C’s, it, my life improved dramatically. [Porter laughs] Absolutely dramatically.
P: Um. You said last night that, um, when you were in medical school, there were still some, uh, some men who thought that, you know, women have no business being doctors, um, really, how much did you feel that, and how did you deal with it?
W: Um, actually, in some professions, like in surgery, and some of the old boys’ club things, surgery, orthopedic surgery, trauma, um, even some internal medicine, you felt it a lot. Um, in pediatrics and family practice, and OB-GYN, uh, hardly at all. And, um, I mean in most of those professions now, if you look at the younger physicians it’s way over fifty percent women. Um, in those other professions, you definitely felt it, and you would, as a woman, they would pick you to go see the gall bladder removal for the fifteenth time and, yet, one of the guys would get picked to go do the really cool, brand-new, laproscopic kidney removal, which sounds like, you know, they’re both surgeries so whaddya care, but it really does matter, and, and, and you’re there for an education and you’re really there to get exposed to as much as possible, and being chosen to go into the fifteenth same operation again is really not benefiting you, as far as your education goes, especially someone like me, who wasn’t gonna be a surgeon, so really I was there just to get exposed to as much as possible, to see as much as possible, so that way later on in my career I could advise a patient, you know, what’s it like to have your kidney removed, well here’s what they do in the OR, you know, like, so it really was to my benefit to my future career far more than some other guy who’s gonna go into surgery, for me to see as much as possible. It really depended on the person, who was doing it. Um, there were some docs who didn’t even realize it, because that was just the way they had, um, grown up in medicine, and so for some of them, you know, just speaking up, saying, oh, well, this is my fifteenth gall bladder operation, is there something else I can scrub in, not necessarily the kidney operation, either, very chosen, ‘cos you don’t want to boot that person out just because he’s a guy, that’s not fair, either, but, and so sometimes speaking up with them, they’ll be like, oh sure, no problem. And for other people, who are just so closed-minded, and, really did feel like women did not belong in medicine because we weren’t going to dedicate our lives to medicine because we all were eventually going to get married, have kids, and drop out of medicine, so there’s no point in educating us, um to do that, believe me they’re still out there, they’re slowly but surely dying off [laughs], but they’re still out there. For those people, it just wasn’t worth arguing. You weren’t gonna win, and, you’re also in a huge power differential with them because, they’re the ones who control your grades, and, your grades in medical school, while they, they don’t matter as much as they do anywhere else, it’s still, you don’t want them to fail you. You know, like, and they had the power to do that [29:35], and they had the power to fail you really without explanation. So, it really depended on the situation. I found that my Hollins skills came in handy, uh, in the OR, especially with the ones that, that they were kinda annoying to me, because, as you can probably tell, I, I can talk to anybody at any time about anything, and they would be in there being very grumpy to me, and I would just start talking to them. And talk, and talk, and talk, on purpose, just to sort of tick them off [Porter laughs], and so, and, they wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise, I would ask them about their kids and their family, nothing about the operation [both laugh], just about all this stuff in the OR, and then finally, after one session where I probably talked for about two hours during a surgery, um, the, the surgeon turned to me and said, I hope you’re not going into surgery because you just talk way too much [both laugh]. And I kinda grinned behind my mask ‘cos I knew exactly what I was doing, because he had been so nasty to me before, I wanted to make him as miserable as possible [both laugh], in a nice passive-aggressive kind of way [both laugh]. But, you know, I think, going to a place like Hollins and being the person I was, too, because I had an interest in the outside world, I was able to sorta cope doing things like that. I think actually the women who struggled more were women who were science science science, and that always excelled, and then suddenly be denied being able to do something really bothered them, and they didn’t know how to cope with it, they didn’t know how to speak up for themselves and say, well, this is my fifteenth gall bladder surgery, could I please do whatever. Um, a lot of them would just accept it and go on, and I’d be looking and like, fifteenth gall bladder surgery, you don’t wanna do that surgery again, and yet, they would accept it and go on, I would sort of, I would sort of compromise between fighting for what I wanted and, and sort of backing off, just sort of depending on the situation. But my friends would just laugh at me because they would say, oh, there she goes, toting [sic] at wind, at windmills again, you know, because, but I, I refused to let it, let it hamper what I needed to do for my education, ‘cos by then I knew I wanted to do pediatrics, so I really focused on what I needed to know to be a good pediatrician. And I would fight for it when I needed to, and then there were times when you just backed off and just said, okay, you know, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna fight this one, it’s not worth it. Um, I think though, probably even now, with more that, probably if you look at the medical profession I’m betting that women physicians are up to about forty percent of the medical profession now. Um, I bet there’s a lot less of that now, and a lot of women go into surgery and things like that now very easily. Um, still the primary care, um, specialties, are the ones that have way over fifty percent females. Um, but over time, as a matter of fact, one of my classmates from Hollins, one of my best friends, from Hollins, um, uh, is a neurosurgeon in, in Indiana. So, you know I mean it definitely can be done, um, my four, myself and four other people, we were all tied at the hip when we were at Hollins, and we were at the neurosurgeon’s wedding, and we were being introduced to the minister, and the minister said, oh, you know, you know, I know that Jill here is a neurosurgeon and, and, you know he goes, what are you, to me, and I said, oh, I’m studying to be a pediatrician, so he goes, oh, doctor, and then my other friend, he goes you know, who, who are you, and she goes, I’m studying to be a lawyer! [both laugh] And then the fourth one, he goes and, and, what about you, are you a doctor, are you a lawyer, and she goes, I’m currently pursuing my Ph.D in microbiology [both laugh]. And he was like, okay, [both laugh] he’s like, this is obviously the nerd squad! [both laugh] We said no, that’s just our Hollins education, we all go on to [33:06] upper higher education after Hollins! So you know I really do think that nowadays that the opportunities are, are much more than they were when I was, you know, graduating and I think my opportunities were much more than ten years prior to that, you know, I think that all the time we’re always moving forward and I think all the, the men’s professions are going to be overtaken by women in time [both laugh]. We’re more than fifty percent of the world’s population, so we’ve gotta at least take over at some point [both laugh].
P: Shifting gears again, um, uh, getting more in-depth about, um, your experience with the adoption process, and uh, you know, why did you decide to adopt, why did you decide to adopt from China, um, things like that.
W: Yeah, and, it was funny, as I was drifting off to sleep last night I thought, you know what, my adoption in a way is sorta social change in my own little way. Um, I, I was a single person, I hadn’t met Mr. Right yet, if he’s out there, he can come knocking at my door at any time [Porter laughs], I’d be thrilled, and, you know, all my friends, really, because people in med school, you sort of miss your twenties, so, I wasn’t really worried about getting married, because I was so busy being in med school, and all my friends got married, mmm, I went to twenty-something wedding showers and I think I [Porter laughs] was in seven weddings, and, um, and then you get into your thirties and all your friends are having babies. And of course I love babies and children, I mean that’s what I chose to do for my life, and so while I didn’t miss getting married, I really missed having a family. And once I finished my residency and once I was in a job where I knew it would be easy to, um, to, to support a child, but, and also with my call and everything, being a physician, I really had to, to weigh, you know, what I could do and couldn’t do as a single parent [34:59] with a kid. And I knew I was in a good place, and then the thought, it came down to, do I wanna get pregnant, which nowadays you totally can through artificial insemination, um, or do I wanna adopt. And I probably struggled with that question for about six months. I was totally comfortable being a single parent, there was no prob, I didn’t struggle with that at all. But I really struggled with, do I need to have a biological child, or can I adopt. And, and then one day it kinda hit me. I’ve been loving other people’s children [both laugh] my entire life! I mean, there are plenty of patients I took care of that I would’ve taken home in an instant had, had fate allowed me to. And I just realized that I didn’t feel the overwhelming need to have a biological child. I, I just didn’t. Some women do. But I just, I didn’t feel that need, and I knew that I could have a, an adopted child and I knew I would love her just like anything else, and, so, that sort of made my decision to adopt. Uh, I broached the whole subject with my family, ‘cos I was pretty sure my family was gonna be okay with it, but they were going to be very important in it, because being a single parent I was gonna need them, to help support me, and help love her, and help take care of her. And they were all thrilled to pieces. I mean she’s the first kid in our family in thirty years. My brother was the baby [Porter laughs]. So, you know, they were just so excited, and then it came down to, did I wanna adopt domestically or internationally. And, uh, domestic adoptions nowadays tend to be open, meaning the birth family’s very involved with the adoptive family and, and, sort of, raising the child and being involved in important holidays and things like that. And also in the United States it’s very hard to adopt domestically, if you’re single. Especially if you want a healthy baby. And so I, I, that, I was fine with that, and the idea of adopting a child within my own race did not matter to me in the least. But I also knew, I had to really think deep in my heart, was there a particular race I wanted to adopt from, was there races I didn’t want to adopt from, and what my family was going to be comfortable with. So again, they were going to be very involved with my life. ‘Cos basically as a single parent you can adopt from Asia, you can adopt from South America, or you can adopt from Africa. Those are really the places. There probably are some openings in sorta Eastern Europe and Russia, um, but that’s, and that if you want a child that looks like you, who is Caucasian, that’s where you have to go. But, uh, so really it came down to Asia, South America or Africa. And, with myself having grown up in Japan, and I knew my family was very comfortable with the Asian culture, it really came down to Asia, ‘cos it was just, it was a culture we were all familiar with, we felt comfortable with it. And then to adopt from Asia as a single parent, if you want a boy you adopt from the Philippines, if you want a girl you adopt from China. And so, that’s what we, China, ‘cos I wanted a girl, I figured as a single parent being a woman, it would just be more fair to the child, for it to be a girl, versus a boy. I, if I’d gotten pregnant and had a boy, that would’ve been fine, but if I had my choice, I just thought a girl would be better. So, um, so I adopted, I chose to adopt from China, and again, my family was so excited and, um, and I, we, what’s really nice about adopting from China is you actually go to China, for two weeks, when you, when you adopt a child. And you go for a cou— [doorbell rings]
P: That’s, uh—
[Wallace gets up to answer the door, and Porter follows, knowing that it’s her friend, Michael. After a pause, in which Wallace gets Michael situated in the living room, to wait out the rest of the interview, Wallace resumes.]
W: And so my family was thrilled with the idea of adopting from China, and my mom actually traveled with me to China. And you get to spend, uh, about five, about three or five days, uh, being a tourist in China, mostly in Beijing. Doing the Great Wall, doing all of that, and then you travel to the child’s home province, she’s from Hubei Province, China, which is sort of in the middle of the country, um, so if you think about China, China’s east coast being like our east coast, Beijing is sorta where Pennsylvania is, Hubei Province is sort of where North Carolina is. And then, you do your daughter’s adoption. The Chinese part of the adoption in the home province and then you travel to southern China, in Guangzhou, which is old Canton, and that’s sorta like being in Florida [Porter laughs]. Um, and, uh, you do the American part of the adoption there. And what’s wonderful about it is, uh, I really think it’s important, since I took Lizzie from her culture, and from the people that she would’ve grown up with as part of her culture, uh, I feel very strongly that I’m to try to, to expose her to as much of the Chinese culture as I can. And, living in central Pennsylvania, there’s not a lot of Asian immigrants here [laughs]. Now here in Hershey, there is, because the medical center, a lot of the researchers are Asian, so that’s actually really nice, in that I have this little enclave. And there actually are a lot of adopted children from China here, as a matter of fact, literally down the street from me, is a woman who adopted from China like four or five years ago, and we were talking one day, and her daughter’s adopted from the same province Lizzie’s adopted from, which is unheard of, there’s only about a hundred kids coming out of that province every year. So the fact that I’ve another child from the same province as someone on my street is just this weird coincidence. But, it was so neat being in China because I can now honestly tell Lizzie, I love the Chinese culture. I love the Chinese people, they were nothing but nice to us, you know, this is what we saw, this is what we did. I’m in the process of making a big memory book for her, of all the places we went to. And I know that I will take her back to China to visit and to see it. Probably when she’s ten or eleven or so, when she’s old enough to appreciate it. [2:05] And, there was, as a result of everything being so perfect [laughs], sort of, as perfect as a family can be, um, I’m actually in the process of adopting my second daughter, from China. I don’t know where she’ll be from or anything like that, but um, uh, I’ll be going back there probably about a year from now. To bring her home. And her name’ll be Katie, so, we say good night to Katie in China every single night when we’re going to bed [both laugh]. But it, the adoption experience is amazing and, and I think in a way it’s social change because, number one, as more and more families adopt from other cultures, you’re gonna see families now in the United States that all are mixed. You know, I mean, uh, one of the families that I went with to China, their, they have one daughter from China, another son from Korea, a child from Guatemala, they’re now in the process of possibly adopting a child from Africa, I mean, their family’s a rainbow. And, I think that it’s gonna become more and more commonplace to see families that obviously have mixed ancestry. And, in a way I think that’s wonderful. I, I think it’s just, it paves the way for some really neat, um, really a neat expansion of America being a melting pot. Um, and I also think that adopting from another culture presents some interesting challenges in that we’re, she’s obviously adopted. You know, the, the culture in the United States adoption in the past was just, the kid didn’t even know they were adopted at times, or it was almost like a family secret, you didn’t tell anybody. Well now the kids are being adopted from other cultures, it’s obvious you’re adopted, and so, you know, you have to, I have to raise her in a way that makes her understand and love adoption. And, uh, be proud of the fact that she’s adopted. And also make other families and kids aware that adoption is just another way to have a family. Um, there’s nothing that irks me more than being introduced to a new group of people as, you know, here’s Jen Wallace and this is her adoptive daughter Lizzie. [4:00] No, this is Jen Wallace, and this is her daughter Lizzie. Um, but people still do that, and, you know, there are times when I correct them if it’s the right time and there are times when I don’t. Or, when people always say, oh, what, where are her real parents? I am her real parent. They are her biological parents. You know, just like trying to correct the terminology and make people sorta understand. I think, um, if we could be ambassadors in a little way, I try. Um, there are times when you don’t feel like it, like when you get asked for the twentieth time, while standing in line at Home Depot, where is she from? [both laugh] Well, I’ve gotten to the point sometimes where, she’s from Hershey, Pennsylvania. [both laugh] And just move on. Um, and then there are other times when, you’re willing to sit down and talk and talk to people and. The majority of people who approach us, we’re obviously, very obviously, an adoptive family. The majority of people either are just honestly curious, or they actually are thinking about adoption, or a family member’s been adopted, they actually have some connection to the adoption community. [5:02] However, I have gotten questions, flat-out questions, from complete strangers who have no reason to want to know this, who have actually asked me, how much did she cost? Like, less than anyone in your family delivering in a hospital. [Porter laughs] So, you know, it, it just, some people in this country don’t really understand. And actually I had a, almost a scary, like, Deliverance [both laugh], like, um, uh, interaction when we, during my maternity leave with her, we took a car trip to Florida to visit my great, my grandmother, her great-grandmother. And, uh, we stopped off off I-95, at a 7-Eleven, I think it was, in North Carolina. And there were these big women sitting behind the counter. And they leaned over, and they said, [Wallace adopts a Southern accent] is that girl Chinee? [both laugh; Wallace goes back to her normal voice] My father and I looked at each other like, oh, my god! And the other lady came over and she goes, [Wallace speaks in the Southern accent again] she sure enough is Chinee. [Wallace goes back to her normal voice] And then they were just fascinated with her. They had never seen an Asian person. And, and they, they would just, she really does look like the, the Chinee in the TV, you know, it, it just blew your mind. And so, in that little instance, Lizzie was an ambassador for all Asian people! [laughs] In this little town in North Carolina. But, um, it’s been, it’s been a unique experience, it’s been an eye-opening experience, and, you know, as being a white person in, in America, especially as a white woman, you really don’t experience true discrimination. But, you know, having her now makes me very aware that there, that there is some a little discrimination, in the United States, and, and if it’s part of us being an adoptive family, you can help combat that, or educate people just a little bit, I’m all for it. So, we’ll see, it’ll be interesting to see how she deals with it, as she gets older. I mean, becoming more aware of it, I mean, right now she actually thinks the whole family’s Chinese, that’s what she tells everybody [both laugh], um, but, you know, but she does know she’s adopted, she understands that, but I don’t think she understands that that’s different from being born to a mommy out of her tummy, she doesn’t get that yet. But it’ll be interesting to see how she does over time. But I, that, the adoption experience has been amazing and now I can totally honestly say, I wouldn’t love her any more than if she had come out of me. I mean, she is mine one hundred percent, and, we’re amazingly close, and, she was adopted at the age nineteen months, so she knew that something was happening and something was different. And she was in a foster family whom she loved, obviously, and they obviously loved her. And, so, she really did have to grieve that loss and then attach to me and, she’s done amazingly well, has learned English like a champ. Still knows some Chinese, though, it pops out every once in a while, which is interesting. [7:44] And she loves watching Mulan, the movie, with the Chinese language track. And I don’t think she knows what they’re saying, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. But she’ll just sit there and watch it. Um, I think she just likes hearing the Chinese, in her head. And so we’re trying to do things like do some Chinese language lessons and maybe do some Chinese dance next year when she’s three and, we’ve celebrated Chinese New Year this year, which is interesting having Mommy make all these Chinese dishes, that I’m not sure how authentic [Porter laugh] I was. We’ve actually become friends with some Chinese families in the community, and they’ve been very helpful, teaching me different Chinese customs, and, we’re trying to sort of treat it the same way I treat all my background, and I’m part German, and we have, you know, pork and sauerkraut, around New Year’s, and now we’re part Chinese, and we have Chinese New Year, you know, we sorta do all different, um, parts of the family. And I knew I was gonna be like that. I’d been surprised at how open the rest of the family was, to that. And pleased. My grandmother, who’s eighty-nine years old now, you wouldn’t think there’s very many flexible eighty-nine-year-olds [Porter laughs]. But she has just taken Lizzie to her heart, and she just adores her, and will do absolutely anything for her, and celebrated Chinese New Year wearing red and saying, Gong Hay Fat Choy, which is Happy Chi, Happy New Year in Chinese, just like the rest of us. You know, and it’s been really neat, to see how one little, little person can really influence a family. It’s, it’s, anyone wants to adopt, they should. It’s a wonderful way to expand your family.
P: So do you have any other, um, you know, post-childhood travel experiences besides those going to China?
W: Um, well, we, when I was in my six months between med school and starting my residency, um, I traveled both to England and to France, two separate trips. Um, mostly because I had chosen, when I was at Hollins, not to do a Hollins Abroad opportunity. And it was more because I was enjoying my experience at Hollins so much I didn’t want to give it up, and I figured, you know what, I, I’m going to be able to travel the rest of my life, I’m not gonna be at college the rest of my life. Um, it’s just like in my senior year, I’m assuming you guys still have the apartments?
P: Yup.
W: Across the way? Um, I was, any senior could go to the apartments, and, I thought, you know what, I’m, I don’t wanna go to the apartments, I have the rest of my life to live in an apartment, I wanna stay on campus! [laughs] You know, I wanna live, I actually lived in Starkie my senior year, which isn’t even there any more! ‘Cos they changed it into the Swannoma [sic] Hall.
P: I lived in Starkie myself last year.
W: Did you? [laughs] I mean I loved it, it was great, it was mostly, um, mostly juniors, ‘cos most of the seniors lived, uh, across the street. But um, I just, I thought, you know what, I want to stay on campus, ‘cos this is going to be my last opportunity to live on a college campus. And, um, I lived in East Hall my sophomore year, looking right out on Front Quad, and then I was in Randolph my, uh, freshman and junior years. So really I, I didn’t wanna go abroad. And one of my friends did go abroad and loved it, but, uh, um, I, she was very upset with me ‘cos she wanted to room with me abroad and I [both laugh] and I didn’t want to go. But, um, I guess, I thought, I can travel. So I traveled then, I spent about two weeks in England, and another two to three weeks in France. Traveling all around, going to England with my dad and then France with my mom. Um, and, other than that, I’ve just done a lot of cruises and stuff like that. I think any time anybody gets a chance to travel, you need to travel. I think that’s the only way you can really experience the world and see the world from a different perspective. When even taking a cruise to the Caribbean, and you wouldn’t think that’s traveling, per se, but it really is, because, you know, you go to Costa Rica, the Costa Rican, uh, people, have a very different background and experience, compared to us, and so you really, you really can, if you’re willing to get off the ship and willing to talk to people you can really learn a lot. And, you can also see true poverty, ‘cos I think most people in the United States have never seen true poverty, and, and, and true people that are suffering, and I think if you go to other countries you can really see that, and really get exposed to that.
P: So what is it like to be, you know, you’ve got a nice house, you’re relatively well-off, you’re a doctor, um, you know, what is it like to deal on a day-to-day basis with, you know, these children who are, um, from less privileged backgrounds, you know, how do they react to you?
W: It’s interesting. It’s, on a day-to-day level, I’m just their doctor and they’re a kid, who I’m taking care of. Um, I think kids’ll be kids, and so really they’re very similar, I mean a kid at the Milton Hershey School is the same as a kid who’s from here in town. You know, even though their worlds are vastly different. Kids are kids. Um, and, so that’s why I think we oughtta be targeting a lot of our cultural understanding at kids, because they’re much more open to it, I think. Um, it’s interesting dealing with parents. It’s the parents that are actually more difficult than the kids. The kids I deal with on a daily basis are fine. Um, I think it’s very interesting, I have found on the whole the parents are either extremely grateful, and really will bend over backwards to do anything possible, um, to help you, help their kids. Or, they’re a little bitter that they can’t be there raising their children as much as they want to. For various reasons. Um, and so they usually tend to be a little more difficult to work with. I’ve found, uh, the ones that are difficult to work with, the fact that I’m a doctor really means nothing to them. There’s no respect there, there’s nothing. It’s, [something]. I’ve been yelled at, I have been hung up on, multiple times, [both laugh] um, I’ve been sworn at, I’ve had people banging tables, you know, across from me, they’ll sort of bang their hands on the table and try to get intimidating. And, when I first took this job, all that was very intimidating. I mean, nobody likes to be yelled at, and nobody likes to be hung up on. But then I kinda realized, there are reasons why these families have failed in our society. And these kids are now at this school. A lot if it’s drug use, a lot of it’s mental health issues, a lot of it is they haven’t learned appropriate anger management techniques, so they haven’t learned how to appropriately deal with situations. So, once you sort of learn, once you sort of come to the understanding of, this is why the kids are here, and these families, for whatever reason, when they failed in our society, and a lot of times just because they can’t relate well to other people, or professionals, or ask for help, then you can sort of understand it. Um, and, not take it personally. Um, I’ve actually found that parents have taken my advice better when they knew I was a parent. I think just the idea of being a parent helped them. It actually got to a point where ever before I had Lizzie, if they said, do you have any kids? I’d say, yes. I’d just lie to them and say yes because until I answered that question, we couldn’t go on. Because they, they wouldn’t take any of my advice beyond that if I hadn’t had kids, then I didn’t know what I was talking about, even if it was about an ear infection or, or, or whatever. So really it’s, it’s not the kids. [00:04] The kids are easy. Kids are kids. But the parents definitely can be a challenge, and, each family’s different. I’ve found that treating them with respect has helped a lot. You know, you don’t treat them, you know, like you think you know more. ‘Cos that just makes them madder. Um, because they think they know everything, because it’s about their child, you know, and in a way they’re right, in that they do know their children better than anybody. Um, I’ve found treating with respect has definitely helped, I’ve found validating their feelings, even if I don’t a hundred percent agree with what they’re saying, if I can validate their feeling behind it, which is a hundred percent real, a lot of times that’s helpful. Um, and there’ve been many parents that we started out having a very rocky relationship with, and now, because I always encourage them, call me back, if you have any questions, I’ll send you information and I’ll do whatever I need to do to make you understand. Even if they don’t agree with me at first, having that open-door policy, or really in our case an open-phone policy, ‘cos most of them are from far away, has really helped cement some relationship with, with the families and with parents. And now the parents that hung up on me two or three years ago are the parents I love getting phone calls from now. Over the last couple of years, the school has made it a real mission to try to really reach out to kids who are in social need. Um, and so we’ve really made an effort to really bring kids in who are, are very needy. Kids living in shelters, kids living in cars, you know, I mean on the streets. As a result, we’ve seen parental involvement go down. Um, ‘cos the parents a lot of times you’re higher social need, it means that usually the parents have more stressors. And so I’ve actually noticed a big difference in the amount of phone calls and stuff like that I’m getting now. A lot more parents are just dropping their kids off and not being involved in their lives. Um, which is sad, because, every kid needs a parent, no matter how bad that parent is. They still want their parent. Um, and, you know for example, three times a year we have parent weekends, where the parents can come and see the campus. And I always have office hours on the weekends, so that way the parents can come and talk to me if they want to, about their child’s health. [2:10] My first three years at the school, I was usually booked solid with families and also with families just coming by just wanting to stop by and see me, and I’d be running the entire week and meeting with people. This past, uh, time I only had three parents scheduled and nobody showed up.
P: Wow.
W: So it’s been a real change, in the type of parent we’re getting now, because we’ve changed the type of kid we’re going after. Um, so that, that’ll be interesting. But really the kids, kids are kids, you know, and the little kids just wanna be loved, and just wanna be teased, and just wanna have fun. Um, and they don’t want shots [both laugh], I mean that’s, that’s kids, in the doctor’s office. The older kids just want you to tell them the truth. They don’t want you to try to pull the wool over their eyes, they know when you’re lying to, yeah. They’re incredible truth detectors. Um, they, they just, they wanna be straightforward with you. I think as long as you’re able to treat the kids with respect, then they’re easy. The older ones especially are easy. Um, it’s, it’s more the parents that actually struggle, but even now we’re hearing less and less from them, which is a real shame.
P: So, do you have any specific, um, accomplishment in your life that you feel is, you know, the greatest, that stands out above all the others?
W: I’m only proud of finishing medical school and residency. Especially knowing how, in the middle of medical school I really struggled with, didn’t even wanna be there. Um, and then, just getting through residency, with the amount of hours, and the amount of work that you have to put in to it. I think just that whole package, of finishing, uh, is huge. You know, I mean that’s, so professionally, that’s definitely my greatest achievement right now, is doing that. Um, and then the second of which, which I know everybody says, but, I especially am very proud of, so far at least, my child isn’t, robbing banks yet [both laugh]. Being a successful single parent, and how well I now integrate her into my life, and, I was very worried, even though I thought it wasn’t gonna be an issue, but I wasn’t sure, I was very worried about, if I suddenly became a parent, would I not be as good at my job. You know, ‘cos I didn’t want my job to suffer, I was proud of the work I had done, and, and I didn’t, I didn’t want that to suddenly change. And I know after talking to some of the nurses, now, they were worried that suddenly I was going to change. Because I was always the person, if a nurse called me at nine o’clock at night and wanted me to come in to see a kid, we’d talk about it and I usually went in and saw them. And I thought, you know as a mom, am I gonna wanna drag my two-year-old out of bed to go in and see a kid who may or may not be really ill at nine o’clock at night? And, I, I was very worried that, like, I would suddenly start saying, no, I’m not coming in, to those things. And I haven’t. And I think that, I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve really been able to sort of balance, job and being a mom [5:28], and being a single mom, which means that I have to do everything. You know, I can’t, you know, if, she has to be picked up at day care at six, so I have to make sure that whatever I’m doing, that, at least drop whatever I’m doing for five minutes prior to six to run to day care to pick her up. And, I’ve actually been really proud of the fact that I’ve been able to stay on top of things and stay organized, and really enjoy her. Um, and really, she’s been fairly easy to incorporate into my life. I’m a little worried about having two, I’ll see how that goes, [Porter laughs] I figure you can only have as many kids as you have hands, so [Porter laughs] we’re only allowed to have two at this point. But, uh, I’m very proud of the fact that, you know, to incorporate her into my life, and I really do feel like, professionally, my life hasn’t changed. My social life, my personal life have changed immensely. Um, and you really do have to sort of, when you become a parent, whether you’re single or not, you really do re-prioritize and figure out what’s important. Um, I’ve never been a very strong housekeeper, I’ve never enjoyed it [Porter laughs]. I always got it done, but when I first had her we were doing it, but I found I was spending every weekend cleaning my house. I went, you know what? I don’t want to clean the house every weekend [Porter laughs], I wanna spend time with my daughter. And so I made the decision to have a maid come in once a month, which, is a pain because you have to pick everything up prior to her coming! [Porter laughs] But, you know, and you have to pay money for it, but, it’s money well spent. Because now it enables me to spend time with Lizzie on the weekends. Um, I think the biggest thing that’s increased, work-wise, with her has been my laundry [Porter laughs]. Um, but she really, I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been able to really incorporate her into my life, it’s been very easy. Um, my friends and my family have welcomed her with open arms. So, probably the, the greatest achievement right now is being her mom. My greatest professional achievement is just completing everything and starting my job. You know, most people graduate from college and start their job. I graduated from college and started my job ten years later [Porter laughs]. And, um, and I’m proud of the fact that I found a job that was such a good match for me. Um, I knew I couldn’t work in private practice, just churning out patient after patient, and seeing ear infection after ear infection after ear infection, that was, that was not what I wanted to do. Um, I also knew that I didn’t want to, um, do research, which a lot of people who don’t wanna see patients all the time end up doing a lot of research, which I didn’t wanna do. [7:54] Um, and I knew I wanted to work with a needy population, but I wasn’t sure how to do that. And then this job sort of fell into my lap, and, actually, and the opening came up in December, before I graduated in July. And I interviewed for the job and they actually held it for me until July, which was really nice. And, even though they needed someone right away, and, this job right now is just the perfect combination of seeing kids and being involved with kids, being able to do a lot of women’s health, which I enjoy with my teenage girl population, and, um, also doing a lot of policy work, both for the school, but then also just sorta branching out into the community and becoming a spokesperson for school health in the community, which has been neat and I, since I live so close to Harrisburg, I would love to be able to expand it to a state level at some point. Um, you know there’s a lot of opportunities, I’ve actually started to make some contacts, within the state government, to start doing that, so. That’ll be interesting, that’ll be something to come.
P: So, this is the last of the, uh, questions I have written down, is, if you could live your life over again, what, if anything, would you do differently?
W: That’s always a good one. [laughs] Um, well I know I would definitely would’ve loosened up a little bit more my first year of med school [both laugh]. Um, I think I really maximized my college experience. Like, I don’t think I would change anything, and I, I’m still thrilled to this day that I had the foresight to choose Hollins. I, I don’t know why I, I did, I just knew that Hollins was right for me. I mean, again, I came from a big co-ed public school, I mean, you’d think a women’s college would be the last thing on my mind, but, there was something in my mind going, this is right, this is what you need to do, and so I, I always value that. I wish I had sorta asserted myself more during high school. I, I think I would’ve enjoyed high school more. But then maybe I wouldn’t’ve gotten so much outta college, so, you know it’s, sort of a double-edged sword there. A lot of people ask me, would you do med school and residency all over again? Knowing how hard it was, and knowing at times I was pretty miserable. And, honestly I don’t know. I can’t say a hundred percent yes, I can’t say a hundred percent no, either, I, I, it’s sort of a mixed bag, you know, you do sacrifice a lot, to become a doctor. You just do. And, and you pretty much sacrifice your twenties. I mean, your twenties are gone. You suddenly turn around and you’re thirty-one and you’re just starting your life. But, being a doctor just gives you so much opportunities, to do really good things, and really influence people and families’ lives. And, and that’s just an amazing gift and an amazing opportunity. Um, and so, you know, part of me says, no, I wouldn’t do this all again. But I think you can also do it other ways. I mean I, probably if I weren’t a doctor, I’d be a teacher. I, I, you know, and I’d be working with kids now. Um, my brother is a second-grade teacher in inner-city Baltimore, and, you know, he’s influencing lives, you know, in many ways more profoundly than I am. You know, I mean, he’s educating the future. Um, so I probably would’ve done that, I know I would’ve worked with an underserved population. I, ‘cos there’s always been that drive to, to wanna help people who really need to be helped. Um, but, you know, I don’t know whether or not I’d be a doctor or not. I, I, sometimes yes, sometimes no, depends on my mood of the day, I guess [Porter laughs]. Um, but, I think I probably would be an adoptive parent at some point, now whether I would’ve had my own biological children I don’t know, and I still might, who knows. But, um, I’ve always, um, thought that in the back of the head that I wanted to adopt, and, and I think that would’ve come up to the surface no matter what my life situation would’ve been. Um, I don’t know if I would’ve adopted from Asia or not, I’ve no clue, but I know, I’m pretty sure that I would’ve adopted at some point. Um, but, you know, right now, there’s nothing I’d change. I, I love my life, I love what I do, um, I love my daughter, uh, I love the fact that I have another one on the way, at some point, um, you know, and I think the future is just exciting. Um, we’ll see, maybe interview me in five years and see [Porter laughs] how I’m pulling out my hair with two girls in elementary school, doing twenty-zillion things, but, you know, right now it’s, it’s good, and, and I don’t regret anything right now. I love it.
P: Good. So, this is the time where, if there’s anything you think I missed, or if there was anything you’d like to talk about, that comes to mind, that you think might be important to, uh, this project, just feel free.
W: Feel free to say it? Uh, no, I, I think it’s great that Hollins is doing this. I think it’s great that Hollins is reaching out to alumnae. Um, you know, if we can influence even just a little bit of some Hollins student I, I think that’s an amazing opportunity. Um, I also think that every Hollins alum has a different story. So, I think that, you know, you talk to someone else, or talk to my friend who’s now a neurosurgeon, her experience in med school and her residency, which is like, seven or eight years long [both laugh]. She literally just finished.
P: Wow.
W: Um, you know it’d be extremely different, especially because she really entered a very male-dominated profession.
P: Oh, yes.
W: Uh, neurosurgery’s one of the last ones that’s very male-dominated. Um, but you know we all have our own stories to tell, and I think it’s great that Hollins is reaching out to hear some of ‘em, because I think that, you know, we can really help you all, and also help our fellow alumnae, through, uh, in whatever decisions they have to make, just to know that someone else had to make ‘em, too, is, is a neat thing. I think. And also it’s a nice little glimpse of Hollins’ past. I think it’d be interesting to hear what some of the older alumnae have to say [laughs]. I don’t consider myself an old one yet! [both laugh] We’ll see, when I go to my fifteen-year reunion we’ll see how old I feel, [Porter laughs] but I, I just think it’s a neat opportunity, and I’d like to thank Hollins for allowing me to talk.
P: Well, on that note, this has been Sarah Porter interviewing Dr. Jennifer Wallace, on Sunday, 19th March 2006.