Complete Interview Transcripts
The First Interview
Dr. Wallace in Tiananmen Square
I'm dropped off by my friend, Michael, in front of a nice suburban house in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. Dr. Wallace is there at the door when I walk up. We settle down in the living room, within hearing of the play of Lizzie, Dr. Wallace's energetic little daughter.
Porter: Hello, this is Sarah Porter, Hollins Class of 2007, and I’m interviewing Dr. Jennifer Wallace, Hollins Class of 1992. Hello, Dr. Wallace.
Wallace: Hello!
P: So. First of all. Tell me a bit about your childhood: when you were born, where you were born, any particular childhood memories that you might like to share.
W: Okay. I was born in 1970, in Baltimore, Maryland. Ummm. Both my parents worked for the federal government, as civilian employees, and so they, um, actually we traveled a lot during my childhood. Baltimore was always home base, uh, but, uh, throughout my childhood we lived in various places, the longest of which was in northern Japan, um, for four years. That was from the ages of six to ten, and for me that was a very important experience ‘cos you remember things when you’re six to ten years old. That’s probably the real part of your childhood, that you remember. And I really do think living in other countries, um, really gave me a broader perspective than I think a lot of other people, at that time especially, the 1970s were really the beginning of people being able to travel and things like that. So, um, that was actually an unusual experience for someone my age, to have lived in so many places. Uh, Japan was probably the most influential. Um, I lived in Germany for a year. Um. And then we also, uh, lived back and forth, back and forth to Baltimore.
P: [clears throat] Tell me about your family. This could be, the family you grew up with and your family now, your daughter.
W: Yeah, who we might hear from throughout the tape! She’s trying to be good. Um, I’m the oldest of two, two children. Uh, my parents, my father was from Baltimore originally, uh, my mother, uh, is from Maine, a small town in rural Maine. Um, she actually went to Smith College, which was another women’s college, um, and I think that’s why. It was her influence made me choose Hollins. And, actually I pretty much only exclusively looked at women’s colleges when I was picking a college. Uh, and, then my brother was born in 1974, so he’s four years younger, it’s just the two of us. Uh, because back, we went back and forth to Baltimore, I really am close with my father’s family, but, uh, we would go up north to Maine and visit my mother’s family, um, uh, for the summer, and, you know, Christmas holidays and things like that. I sort of consider Baltimore my home town. And then, um, I went to Ho-Hollins, I was, Baltimore’s about four hours north of Hollins, uh, and then, so it was perfect for college I think, because I was able to get away and, and do my own thing, but if I had to get home for a weekend it was easy to get home for breaks. Uh, went to Hollins and then I went back to Baltimore, uh, to get my Master’s Degree as well as my, uh, medical doctorate degree, and then I came here to Hershey to do my residency and ended up staying. As part of medicine, you have to end up sacrificing a lot of your social life, especially in your twenties. And, I hadn’t met anyone that I wanted to marry and I think that Hollins taught me too to be very independent, which is a good thing, [small laugh] and so when I finally was settled in my, um, career, and I realized I wanted a family. Um, I decided to adopt my daughter, and she’s adopted from China, uh, she came home about a year and a half ago, and we’re actually in the process of adopting my second daughter now. She’ll be home probably a year from now.
P: Also from China?
W: Also from China, yeah. And I think again that’s the Asian influence and I grew up in Japan, my whole family’s comfortable with the Asian culture, and so, adopting from an Asian country was just the natural fit, and if you’re single, parents, you want to adopt a girl you have to adopt from China. So, that’s my family now, myself and Lizzie, and also we have two cats, who you’ll probably hear throughout the interview as well—we’re kind of a vocal family, altogether. And everybody still visits. Lizzie is the first grandchild in the family in thirty years, so, uh, we get a lot of visitors, and a lot of toys, as you can tell from my dining room, which is now converted into a toy room. [Porter laughs] Yep. So that’s, that’s pretty much my family now, um, and I also think that because I’m really the only person here in Pennsylvania, um, my friends have become my extended family here, which has been a wonderful support, uh, for me and we, we have a great time. And it’s, it’s a great mixed bag of friends: some people are single, some people are single with families, some people are married, some people are married with families. And everything in between.
P: How have. Do you think your, your family values, you know, your family influence, family values that you grew up with have influenced your current work, your chosen occupation.
W: Definitely, they have influenced my current work, not my, uh, education, uh, or my current vocation, I guess. I’m actually, I’m the only, only the fifth or sixth person in my family, total, to go to college, and then, let alone go on and get a Master’s degree and a doctorate. Um, I’m definitely the only person in the sciences, I’m kind of the black sheep [laughter from Wallace] in that I went into the sciences. But my family, because we traveled so much and we were not the type of family, when we were on an Air Force Base in Japan, there were many families there who would never leave the base. They just stayed, ‘cos the bases are like little bits of America, you know, I mean, but you can just stay there and be like you’re American. But my family always believed in getting out and exploring the cul- the culture, exploring the countryside and getting to know the people, my mom taught English in a Japanese school, um, and it’s those type of experiences that made me, that made me very open to, uh, new, um, people, new places, different people, different places, also just seeing, being very comfortable with poverty. Which I think a lot of people, growing up in a basically, in a middle- or upper-middle-class family never really experienced. Whereas we would see it all the time, and you learn to become comfortable with it. Uh, I think that, uh, having those different culture experiences were important, and then there was always a sense of, we needed to give back. That was always very important, that no matter what you did, you only are as important as the amount you can give back. I think it’s interesting that both my brother and I chose very different professions but we’re both giving back. Um, he is a second-grade teacher in inner-city Baltimore, and so he, um, he gives back, you know, all the time, too. Um, can you, um, can you edit it? Okay, good [Wallace laughs].
P: I’ll be editing the transcript.
W: Oh, good, but not this—okay. [laughter from both] But, I, I really do think that there was always a sense that we should give back and in my current job, even though I’m a physician and I live very nicely, I don’t sacrifice to do what I do, but, um, I, uh, um, I’m taking, uh, I work at a school for underprivileged kids, who are both socially and financially, and financially, ah, at risk in some way. And, a lot of them have never had health care before, and when I was finishing up my residency in Pediatrics, I really had to think long and hard about what I wanted to do. Uh, ‘cos you can just go and do a regular practice, that’s easy, you can work in a hospital, that’s easy, but I really, I wanted to do something more than that, and I didn’t know quite what that was and how it was gonna look. And then this job opportunity came up here in Hershey to work at the Milton Hershey School, and it really has been a nice fit, um, [something something] in public health and public policy gives me a chance to do that, but it also gives me a chance of delivering health care to a lot of kids who never had it before. And that’s a really neat thing.
P: [clears throat] What was your experience at Hollins like?
W: Good ol’ Hollins! I loved Hollins. Um, I adored Hollins, I went there really excited to go. There were a lot of people who were homesick the first couple weeks, I, I really wasn’t at all. I was excited to be there, um, I think the tricks for anyone to, to like Hollins, uh, anyone to like any college, is to get as involved as possible, and I think that Hollins gives everyone a unique opportunity to do that, a wide variety of ways, uh, I was on the Swim Team for four years, absolutely adored it, um, I had swum my whole entire life, I was always a fish, and so that was a natural fit for me, but then as the years went on, I got involved with a little bit of everything: I was on, uh, part of the like, the Scholastic Committee, we monitored the, the exams, I can’t even remember what it’s called anymore, the self-exams.
P: Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.
W: Yeah [laughs]. And, um, I was sports editor of the paper, um, I was obviously very involved in biology and chemistry. Um, I, uh, I did a lot of things. Um, so Hollins, I mean, it’s just that the opportunities to get involved are amazing, and then it, it’s interesting because before I went to Hollins, I was always a very good student, I always got involved with a couple of things, but I was always the person who sat in the back of the classroom, well, with the last name “Wallace” I always got assigned [Porter laughs] to the back of the classroom in high school, and I never spoke up at all, and I was at a big co-ed, large inner-city high school, and then to go to Hollins, it was like my own inner person came out. And I really became very comfortable with public speaking, I became very comfortable, uh, working with the public, which is what a physician’s job is, you’re constantly working with the public. And so, I always credit Hollins with discovering me. I really came out then. Um, I think if I’d gone to a large public school, I would’ve gotten the same education, I would’ve enjoyed it, but I don’t think I would’ve discovered myself. I just don’t think that a large school enables you to do that. Um, I don’t know if it was the size of the school, or that it was a women’s college or both, I have no clue, but I, I credit Hollins with really helping me discover who I am and giving me the confidence to do things that I wouldn’t normally do. I think that having gone to Hollins, once I’m settled in my life, I was okay with being single and being a single parent. And I know it’s part of that was Hollins sitting behind me going, “Okay, you’re a woman, you know, you can do all this on your own, you can do it all on your own” and here I am! [laughs] Just, uh, just being myself and I really, I credit Hollins with that. I really do. Um, I think that the other thing that Hollins did for me which made me very different from a lot of my , uh, medical peers is the liberal-arts education really set me apart from them. I mean, most of them go to big inner-city, or big public universities, um, because that’s what you need to do to get in to med school, and as a result they can’t write at all, can barely public speak [Porter laughs]. And so, really, it’s helped me I think carve out a niche in my current job and that I really am able to, um, I do a lot of policy writing for the school, I’ve even started doing some policy writing for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and I know that that’s all my sort of my science half of my brain and then my non-science half of my brain. And, um, it really is, is, um, I think Hollins really fostered that whole brain not just one side or the other.
P: Were there any specific classes or professors, at Hollins, who helped you or, uh, inspired you? Or who you were really fond of?
W: Well, uh, we had a biology professor named Dr. Grey who actually retired couple of years ago now, um, who I was very close with and actually really helped, uh, me sort of decide to go to medical school and to become a biology major. I initially had enrolled as a chemistry major. And I didn’t even take biology until my sophomore year. And she, um, and she kind of persuaded me [laugh], bribed me, coached me to become a biology major, stole me away to become a biology major [Porter laughs]. Um, and that was one of ‘em, ‘cos I really did enjoy biology, I liked chemistry as well, but, and you have to take a lot of chemistry to get into medical school, so. But, um, I loved biology, biology was just, it was fun, she made it fun, made it interesting. Uh, but then also someone who is currently there now, uh, Lynda Calkins, who’s the director of athletics, she’s also the swim coach, uh, she was when I was there. Um, I think she taught, or further enforced, just that the need to be, to accept everybody. I think the sport of swimming is very unique in that it’s a team sport and yet it’s also an individual sport, and you can be the absolute worst swimmer on a team, but if you improve your own personal times, you’re a winner. And I think that’s just a very unique perspective, uh, from sport and she really had that perspective, and we had every, I had swum for years, so I was a natural for the swim team, but, there were plenty of other people who had joined the swim team who were really just doing it for fun, or some exercise, who weren’t very competitive swimmers, but all of us were treated equally and fairly, by her, and all of us were winners, as long as we improved our own personal times. And I, and the whole idea that everybody contributes to the team. Even the person who comes in sixth is getting points for the team. And, so, I really do think that, and she really fostered that, it was never about, you know, uh, honoring the really good swimmers and ignoring everybody else, she really treated all of us fairly. Um, so I think probably those were the two most influential people at Hollins, for me. Both within my major and, just, the outside life, which I think in coll, college, I think is much more about the outside stuff than it really is about your education, I think in reality, I think that’s how college makes you a good person, it makes you a well-rounded person, is all the other stuff you get to do, and I think that’s where bigger schools miss out, because there’s not as much opportunity to do that outside stuff.
P: Tell me about your experiences in graduate school and getting your doctorate.
W: Well, it’s, it’s interesting [laughs], totally different world than Hollins! I can tell you that, it was a definite culture shock. I applied to go to med school in my senior year of, of Hollins, I got wait-listed everywhere I applied. And so, I really, that was a time in my life when I was miserable, I, I bawled on my graduation day, leaving school. As a matter of fact, I was gonna drive myself home and my brother was the passenger in my car and my mom, you know all the cars were loaded up with all my stuff I had accumulated over four years, and, I actually had to pull off 81 and my brother and I had to switch ‘cos I was bawling, I was a wreck, I couldn’t believe I had to leave. And I was stayed there for another twenty years and kept it the exact way it was, which I knew I couldn’t, so I had to leave [laughs]. But, so, we go from that, a place that I absolutely adored, and also at that time not really knowing what I was going to do, was very scary, and it got to be July 1st and I still was wait-listed everywhere, and I thought, “I just have to decide to do something else with my life, I’m not going to let medical school run what I was going to do.” So I looked around and I thought, oh, I’ll get a Master’s Degree in public health [laugh], which was, uh, which was what I did, both Maryland and Hopkins, uh, Hopkins, of course, all the due dates and everything had been long gone, so had Maryland’s, but Maryland’s program had been much more flexible, so I applied to them and interviewed with them, and got a spot with them. Within a couple of weeks, and then, um, and then I had, um, started my…So, [something] it was the middle of July, and, I got accepted into graduate school, I started my graduate program and literally two days later I got a call saying I got in to the University of Maryland Medical School. [laugh] What am I going to do now? And, you know, literally to get in to medical school there are, uh, anywhere from five to ten applications for every one spot. So, it is highly competitive, and out of those five to ten applications you know at least half of them are perfectly competent, good people who deserve to be good, caring doctors, and yet only one of them is gonna get a chance to do it. And so, you know, here I am with this dilemma, but I was just so mad that they put me through all this emotional turmoil the last six or seven months, being wait-listed and all that kind of stuff that I said no, I said, I’m not, I’m committed to the Master’s program, I’m gonna do it, and, um, I’ll re-apply. Maryland thought I was crazy, but [Porter laughs], they accepted it, and they said I could re-apply for the next year, uh, which I did, and, what usually happens to get into medical school is, you apply, then you get interviews, and then your interview, if your interview’s in January, the February admissions team meets and they sort of send out letters at the end of February saying, these are the group of people from that January interview group who are gonna come. Well, I got a, I interviewed in January, and literally I got a letter, like two weeks later, it was just this non-descript letter, I wasn’t expecting to get a letter then, from the University of Maryland saying, yes, we’ll take you for the next class. So then suddenly I had to cram a two-years Master’s program into one year to complete it, and, but I decided that I really wanted to, I really believe that if you commit to something you need to finish it. And, I didn’t want to just use a Master’s degree to get into med school, like, I really wanted it to matter for something else. And, so I literally was taking about twenty-two credits a semester to try to smash it all in [Porter laughs]. I handed in my Master’s thesis on July 31st and I started medical school on August 14th. I took two weeks off [Porter and Wallace laugh] and probably slept mostly in the sun, ‘cos it was August, and went to medical school. Now, my Master’s program was very small, so it was very Hollins-like in that the professors taught you directly and you sort of got to know them. Um, medical school was the one-hundred-percent anti-thesis of Hollins that you can think of. You literally sit, the first two years, anyways, you sit from eight o-clock in the morning till five o’clock at night in a huge lecture hall with a hundred and sixty other people, and hour upon hour professors just come to the lecture hall and lecture to you, so you just sit there. And, then you study from about six o’clock at night until ten o’clock at night. There is no social life. There is no outside world. You’re just there to study. And I had come from Hollins where, yes, studying’s important and you want to get your education, but it’s all about becoming the whole person. And I really do feel like part of me was being left out of the whole process. And, so, you usually have off our, um, between your freshman year of med school and your sophomore year of med school, you have the summer off. And I really wanted to do something totally fun and totally different, and so I ended up working, I’d never been to summer camp when I was younger, I thought, I want to go to summer camp. So I ended up working, I was the director of swimming at a girl’s camp right in my mom’s home town, figuring if I hated it I could always walk to a relative [Porter laughs] and they could rescue me, ‘cos it’s in the wilds of Maine, [laughs] you know, like I can’t believe I’m doing this. But I absolutely loved it. And I loved it so much that when I left I was bawling just like I bawled when I went, when I went away from Hollins, and, I almost dropped out of med school then, ‘cos I thought, med school’s, if I’m dreading going back to something this much, why would I do it. But, you know, you just keep your eye on that long-term goal of, I know that I’m going to be a pediatrician, I know I want to do something with this, I know I can, and your stubbornness kicks in a little bit, and, you, um, and you just keep going, and I did, except for I did change things around a little bit. I was supposed to graduate in spring of 1997, from medical school, and, I ended up taking the next couple of summers off, which we don’t usually have off in med school, from then on you kind of work all the way through. I worked at the same summer camp in Maine each summer, went back and had my fun, roasting marshmallows and teaching swimming, and then I ended up pushing my med school graduation to December of 1997, which was excellent. There was nothing that I would regret about that at all. My friends in med school thought I was absolutely insane, but I just, I needed that for my person, for my whole person, I just needed that, and it really made me appreciate med school, I loved it, and now I have a second alma mater, I call it, my summer camp in Maine, I go there for reunions every five years, just like I go to Hollins for reunions every five years, and, um, it really helped sort of treat me as a whole person. And then I actually had off for six months because, uh, when you graduate from medical school, all residencies start July 1st. Doesn’t matter where you are, or anything, they all start on July 1st, so I had off for six months, so I did some traveling, and, worked on various projects, and, just took time off and, it really helped me prepare for residency, which is a totally unique experience, beyond anything I think anyone can even imagine, because you are, you’re finally in your area of expertise. I was up here in Hershey at the Milton Hershey Med Center, um, but you’re working a hundred and twenty hours a week. And there’s only a hundred and sixty hours in a week, so you’re literally up four nights, for twelve hours each night. But you’re finally doing what you love, so it’s, it’s this [laughs], okay, I love what I’m doing, but I don’t really love doing it a hundred and twenty hours a week, but that’s what you do. Um, and, you’re more treated, it’s more like a job in that you get vacation, four weeks off and that kind of stuff, and you get paid for it, finally, instead of having to borrow all the money you had to for medical school. But, um, it definitely, that definitely pushes you as far as keeping your eye on the ball and knowing in three years you’re gonna graduate and, and be done, and not have to do any more training, and there’s a lot of variety in that too, because you get to do a month in the intensive care unit, and a month on the floor, and a month doing outpatient pediatrics, but it’s all pediatrics. So even though I was working the hardest I’d ever worked in my life, I loved it, because, it really, um, it was finally in my area that I wanted to be in. Which was really, that was really fun and exciting. And obviously I liked the area, I ended up staying, so, ended up, ended up living here, which, I never would’ve dreamed I’d live north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but here I am [laughs]. A Northerner.
P: I don’t think you answered this yet, and if you did, forgive me [Wallace laughs], but, how did you, what made you decide to, um, concentrate on pediatrics—I mean, doing your residency, you know, specializing even more within that.
W: Right, it, um. I’d always loved kids, I mean, even when I was, you know, in high school and in middle school, when I was a swimmer then, um, it was all age groups went swimming, meaning that kids from age five up to age eighteen on a team. So the older kids would always take the younger ones under their wing, I was one of those older kids who was always hanging out with the little kids. You know, I was the kid that was the baby-sitter of the neighborhood, I baby-sat and baby-sat and baby-sat. Um, then even, through Hollins, um, you know, in summers and when I was home on vacations, I was usually baby-sitting across the street at the neighbor’s house, and my summers, uh, at Hollins, I would come home and I would work, I worked at a local pool, coached the swim team for the kids, and, and taught swimming lessons to the really little ones, so I always loved working with little kids. Um, and then I worked at the summer camp in Maine, so, I mean, just loved working with kids, and then, when I was in medical school, the neat thing, which is really nice about medical school, the last two years you spend rotating through the various departments in the hospital. You do six weeks of pediatrics, six weeks of internal medicine, six weeks of OB-GYN. And I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do—I knew that I wanted to do something outpatient, I didn’t think I wanted to end up in the OR. You experience it still and I realized I really didn’t want to go in the OR, but, um, I was really thinking women’s health. ‘Cos I liked the delivery room, my experience at Hollins obviously was very pro-women and women can do everything and, uh, women’s health issues just were interesting to me, and my, that was my first, my first rotation. And, the, um, and I was describing to my family, who had never had anyone, who had never had anyone in the family even go into medicine at all, and, I said, oh, what was it like, oh, it was great, the woman was in labor and she was pushing and her family was there, and I really think I wanna do OB-GYN, I love it, I think it’s so neat, the delivery room’s awesome, and then the baby was born, and the baby did this, the baby did that, and the baby did this, and the baby did that, and my family went, what about the woman? I said, I don’t know, I was too busy playing with the baby! [Porter laughs] And they said, we think you’re gonna be a pediatrician! [laughs] Not an obstetrician, you just liked the labor part ‘cos you knew the baby was coming, not because you really liked the labor part, and, so that really, and after that I did pediatrics and I, I loved the fact that number one, kids are pretty much well. And so the job of a pediatrician is to try and keep kids well, so I liked the preventive aspect of it, that we try and keep them well, keep them safe. Um, and I also liked the fact that most pediatric illnesses are curable. So there’s almost always a good outcome. And I really like that sort of happy side to pediatrics. And then I also found that I had a real knack for, for dealing with difficult families. Because, pediatrics is very unique in that you have a, um, a sick child, but the spokespeople for that child are parents who are feeling a hundred percent fine, and will come after you like a, like a wild tiger if their child isn’t getting better. And, I have a knack for taking people who are being a little but stubborn, or [Porter laughs] aren’t understanding the situation properly, um, I was the resident they would call to say, put Jen Wallace in there, she’ll take care of that family, they’ll walk out just so pleased with their care. And, that was the truth, I have a knack for taking people who are really angry and turning them around and making them like me [laughs]. I don’t know why! I wish I did, ‘cos I really would enjoy that! [both laugh] But, for whatever reason, I, I really like dealing with families, and so, uh, pediatrics was just the natural fit. And then, knowing that there’re so many kids out there who need health care, that need to be taken care of, um, that sort of led me to the Milton Hershey School, which is just such a unique place to practice. Um, in order to work with the Milton Hershey School, I had to give up dealing with babies, which I absolutely adore, um, and I do a little bit of time at the nursery at the hospital when I can, um, but the school is kids ages four to about age twenty, so, um, I can’t, uh, obviously practice on babies much anymore, but I love the kids age four to twenty, and I think I’ve carved out for myself at the school, is I do all of the adolescent girl GYN care, so it’s sort of my old women’s health coming back in, I sort of slipped it in the back door, and uh, I actually do all of it now, and I really developed a nice program where the girls really feel, um, like they can come in and see me, we actually tripled our visits in that area, which is really nice that the kids can just come in and talk to us, and, about everything, from, you know, sexually-transmitted diseases and risks of pregnancy to they’ll come in and dish about their boyfriends and moan and groan [laughs] ‘cos they’ve broken up with somebody and everything in between, but I wanted to create that nice open atmosphere for girls, and it’s really, it’s been nice to see that program grow at the school, since I’ve been there.
P: How was your specific experience as a woman, how’s it been like to be a, you know, female, doctor?
W: [laughs] It’s very interesting, in the field of pediatrics there, it, probably now about sixty percent women, so that’s actually, it’s a very comfortable place to be as a woman. Um, however, any of the pediatricians above about age forty-five are men, so there’s sort of like this dichotomy, those of us who are younger are very used to, the guys are very used to working with women, um, actually in my residency class, out of the ten of us in the class, there was only one guy. The rest of us were all women, so he was definitely out-numbered [both laugh]. He enjoyed it, ‘cos he was single! But, he definitely was out-numbered. But, um, in medicine, still, majority men. Um, so it is a very male-dominated world, especially in surgery and stuff like that. Um, the, um, I think that when you’re in medical school, especially, ‘cos there is such a power dynamic difference anyways between the attending surgeon and the, um, and the medical student, you’re so intimidated anyways, and then there are still some male surgeons out there who just don’t believe that women should be in medical school, period, and especially shouldn’t be going to the OR or anything like that, because they um, they believe that, you know, you’re not going to dedicate your entire life to medicine, it’s kind of a waste to educate you. Now that women are in medicine, um, there’s been a lot more flexibility…but I think that, um, that that’s all changing, I really do think that the field of medicine they’re really starting to do things like job-share, they’re starting to do things like women can work part-time, um actually a lot of women are going into surgery and stuff like that now simply because they have very regular hours, you know, as long as you’re not on call for a trauma or something like that, you can basically work, um, from like six o’clock in the morning to about two o’clock in the afternoon and then be done with your day. So there’s actually a lot of flexibility in medicine now with, with women more than, um, more than there used to be, I think definitely probably the women in medicine twenty years ago, were the real trail-blazers, I think by the time that I got there it was different. My class at the University of Maryland, my medical school class was the first class to be fifty-two percent women. We were the first one, so, you know, it’s definitely, we’ve come a long way, I think, I think there’s still a long way to go, um, I’m very fortunate in that my current job when I’m, I’m on call about half the month, but, when I’m on call, number one, I don’t go out a whole lot, and when I have to go in, I can take Lizzie with me, because there’s, not only as a woman but as a single parent, I mean that’s huge, ‘cos, you know, doctors work twenty-four hours a day, I mean, and I don’t have a nanny or anything like that so I have to be able to take her with me when I go into work, and, luckily that’s no big deal, she knows the nurses and literally she’ll go to the play room and play and, or help, she’s actually helped me sometimes, suture some kids [laughs]. She’s my assistant, yes. But she, uh, but there’s still a lot of jobs in medicine that I couldn’t do, because I wouldn’t be able to take her in with me if I had to, you know, admit a very sick baby in the intensive care unit or something like that, so, there is still a lot of inflexibility that has to do with the hours, you know, we have to cover sick patients twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but more and more jobs are doing job-sharing and things like that or a woman’ll work part time and not take any call, so I think that things are opening up, it’s very very flexible in family practice and in pediatrics and in internal medicine. It’s less flexible in surgery, um, but it’s getting better. But I did see a lot of women in my med school class who chose specialties not because they particularly loved that specialty, and I love pediatrics, that was an easy choice for me, but because they knew that eventually the hours would be good. And so they made those sacrifices. But we did have women in my med school class have babies and get married and all that kind of stuff in med school, which is just beyond, I couldn’t imagine, I couldn’t’ve done it. Um, and we also had women, I mean in my residency class who ended up getting pregnant and having a baby during their residency, which, if you could imagine…if you could imagine having a baby when you’re working a hundred and twenty hours a week, I mean that’s a huge sacrifice for your family, as well as for you.
P: So, those women continued with med school and residency, didn’t drop out?
W: Yep, they didn’t drop out, a lot of them would graduate late, so that’s how I think I was able to sneak into graduating in December ’97 instead of the spring, um, but, but yeah, everyone still finished, everyone just sort of delayed a little bit, in residency the two women who actually had babies during their residency, they actually graduated on time, but what they ended up doing was basically sacrificing all their vacation time for their maternity leave. But I was actually very lucky in that my employer, now, I mean even to adopt Lizzie they gave me full maternity leave, um, you know, while she was being adopted, and, uh, I basically took the full six weeks’ maternity leave just like anybody would have. As you can see, [both laugh] having a kid and being a single parent is not always the most flexible thing in the world, and I was able to find a job that’s been extremely flexible, that’s really worked with me and gave me full maternity leave when I adopted and they’ve been very nice to work with, and I think as time goes on in medicine, there’s only going to be more and more and more of that.
P: How do you define “activism”? And what does that term mean to you?
W: I think that activism can be very big or very small. I don’t think you need to be out there carrying signs, picketing on the front steps of the Capitol. I think that activism just means trying in your own way to improve the life of even one person. And that, um, and if you do that, I think you’re being active, and I think you are helping. I also think there’s a component of activism of trying to change the public’s perception of something. Uh, whether that is, uh, uh, through writing policies, which is what I do through the school all the time, um, to speaking out about the school and promoting health care for underprivileged kids. There’s an element of trying to educate other people about it. Um, so it’s really, it’s, activism, I think, the definition fits a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. You know, obviously Martin Luther King, was an activist. Um, but I also think that there are a lot of people out there every single day who are being activists in their own way and at least helping improve some element of society.
P: So, you would consider yourself an activist?
W: I do. I think in my own way I am, in that I know that I’m improving the lives of the kids that I work with, um, all the time…So I know that I’m improving their lives, and also, I know that by, um, like, writing policies for the school, as well as, uh, speaking out about the school, and working within the school, and with the community, I sort of by proxy become an expert in school health for the community, um, so I go out and talk with them all the time, um, to try and change beliefs within my own specialty, you know, and I, I don’t proclaim to be an expert on racism or getting women the vote or anything like that, I’m an expert on school health, and on the health issues of kids, and that’s where I focus a lot of my attentions, and where I focus a lot of my, my work.
P: Finally, at least for today, what made you decide to participate in this particular project?
W: I think, initially, when we got the e-mail, I thought, oh, that doesn’t apply to me. [both laugh] Because you know, again, I’m not, you know, Martin Luther King, out there gettin’ on the news, being all famous for what I do. And then, thinking about it, and thinking, do I promote social change?, and I believe I do, because, and I think the school does, on the whole, I mean what Milton Hershey School does is we take, um, kids from all fifty states, we do a focus on Pennsylvania specifically, uh, this area, but we have kids from all over, who are in social and financial need, they live, uh, below the poverty level, we have a lot of kids who live in shelters, who, uh, actually, a lot of kids have been living in cars, that when they come to us, they literally come to us with the clothes on their backs, we actually took in a lot of kids from Hurricane Katrina recently. Um, so they have a financial need, as well as a social need. The social need, I think, impacts them more than their financial need, I think the kids learn to live with whatever amount of money they have, kids don’t really know about money, but, the social needs of our kids are huge, um, most of them come from single-parent families, a lot of them have been victims of abuse themselves, um, a lot of them, um, have parents who are in jail or are drug users. And what the school does is, the school takes them in, provides all the rooming, housing, and board, provides their education, even the four-year-olds board on campus. They live with a married couple who take care of ten other kids, so it’s a dorm, but it’s more of a home-setting dorm, and then, they’re taken care of until age eighteen, and if they have a good time, they graduate from high school, which most of the kids do, they get a hundred percent free ride to college. So you’ve taken this kid, who has come from nothing, and has really, I call it minus nothing, because, really, the social need impacts them so much. And everything is provided for them when they’re a child, and then, they’re given this amazing opportunity, as an adult, to better themselves. And as a result, the school improves families, too, because if a mother doesn’t have to worry about providing food for her children the very next day, she might be able to get a chance to get a better job, might be able to get a chance to educate herself. And so we actually, and there’s been a lot, we’ve done a lot of research in the last ten years, of the school improving, that we’ve bettered families as a result of all those kids being at our school. And that’s absolutely amazing. From a medical standpoint, many of our kids have never had any medical care, and they’ve never had dental care, that’s for sure, they usually come to us having nothing, there’s a full-time dentist at the school, who just takes care of their teeth, but most of our kids have had minimal or no medical care, basically they’ve gone to public health clinics and gotten their shots, and that’s just about it. And, to come to us with asthma that’s never been treated, or, you know, we’ve diagnosed kids who, um, have had chronic arthritis, actually juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, that never was treated, they always were just told, ah, it’s just your achy bones, don’t worry about it, and so, we’re able to take in, and our philosophy is, if we can make them as healthy as possible, they’re going to get more out of school, they’re gonna have a good experience, and, as a result, they’re gonna end up being better, more well-rounded people. So that’s, um, when the whole idea of the social change project came around, I thought, huh, do I really make social change? And I thought yeah, every single time a kid, one of our kids walks across that graduation stage, they’re gonna become a better member of society than they probably would’ve, and had so many different opportunities at the school, they basically, we take kids who come from very low socio-economic status and, if they’re in the French Club, they go to France every year. You know, like, they have experiences, opportunities that they’ve never had, and then they’re able to go to college, and so, maybe one of them’s going to discover, sounds dramatic, but maybe one of them’s gonna discover the cure for cancer, or at least participate on it. Maybe one of them’s gonna be a teacher, you know, and teach the next kid who’s going to discover the cure for cancer, you know, like the ripple effect is amazing once you think about it, and we’re actually, again, you’ve had the research from the school that’s actually proven that we improve families. The classic story I like to tell is, of someone I work with, she was a medical student when I worked with her, and, she kinda pulled me aside and said, I’m going to let you know that I went to this school, as a kid. And I went, whoa, okay, I said, tell me your story. ‘Cos every kid has a story, you know, and every story’s different, and every story is sad and happy all at the same time, and she came from inner-city Philly, both her sister and her came to this school when they were like ages seven and eight, something like that, um, their mom was a drug user, she, uh, couldn’t hold down a job, she, uh, put her girls in the school, ‘cos she couldn’t take care of them, put them in the school, the girls actually lived at school, even during the summer, they probably went home for maybe a week at Christmas, was just about it. The girl that I talked to, she did so well in school, that she got a full-ride scholarship to Brown, went to Brown on their money, on Brown’s money, graduated from Brown, is now going, well, she’s now graduated, but at the time, was going to medical school, on the Milton Hershey money, so she was full-ride to medical school, which is a two-hundred-thousand dollar gift, um, and then she eventually went into family practice and is now a family practitioner, in Pennsylvania. And what’s really neat, that’s just her life, her sister ended up going to the University of Pennsylvania, another excellent school, she ended up majoring in social work, and now is a social worker, I think in Philadelphia. So her life was improved, but everyone goes, well yeah, that makes sense, ‘cos they were both at the school, but their mom, ended up, she ended up going to rehab, dropping her drug habit, she got a job, she moved into a better house, she’s now a waitress, so she has a full-time job, she’s supporting herself, and she’s in a better neighborhood than she was, so, we’ve improved the family. And I think that’s a really neat thing for a place to be able to do, is to improve the family. So, uh, when I thought about that, and thought about how I keep kids healthy in order to make that possible, I went, sure! I impact social change. [both laugh] So, I applied, and, or at least I answered the e-mail, I didn’t really apply, sent an e-mail [Porter laughs], and then I didn’t hear back, so I was like, okay, no big deal, at least I let somebody know what I do [laughs], ‘cos I’m, I always talk about school to everybody, ‘cos I’m very proud of the work that we do there, and then when I got the e-mail saying that, yes, we do want to interview you, I was really excited about it, ‘cos I think that so much in medicine, people don’t think a lot of times about doctors providing social change. We cure the sick, we’re good people, but social change isn’t usually up our alley unless you’re doing international health or something like that, but I think, there’s a lot of us out there doing little things, keeping kids healthy, keeping families healthy, that actually do impact society and do make social change.
P: This has been Sarah Porter and Dr. Jennifer Wallace, Saturday, March 18th, 2006.