Medical student Tamia Potter makes history
By Doosuur Iwambe
When Tamia Potter opened her envelope at Match Day the day medical students nationwide learn what residency programs they will join following graduation she discovered she was one step closer to achieving her goal of becoming a neurosurgeon.
She also was among the first to realize she had just made history.
Upon graduation from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in May, Potter will become a neurosurgery resident at Vanderbilt University—and the first Black woman to join the program in the school’s nearly 150-year history.
Only about 5.7% of physicians in the United States identify as Black or African American, according to recent data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. And a 2019 association report showed there are just 33 Black women neurosurgeons in the country.
Potter’s match to Vanderbilt generated news stories nationwide, from outlets such as cleveland.com and News 5 in Cleveland to CNN and Yahoo! News.
The stories came within days of her announcement on Twitter, which has more than 500,000 views and counting.
Initially, Potter was gratified, thrilled and relieved to begin the next phase of her training to become a neurosurgeon at a school she selected as her No. 1 choice.
Like her peers, she had reached the end of an incredibly competitive process for which she’d been preparing since entering medical school.
The significance of her personal accomplishment hit later.
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“You read about how people make history,” Potter said. “You don’t think that’s going to be you.”
But this was a moment she had been planning for from a young age when her fascination with the human brain and its inner workings first sparked.
“As a child, watching my mom, a nurse, care for patients—I was always questioning why the body works the way it does,” said Potter.
“I knew [then] I wanted to learn and understand how the brain and nervous system worked; I wanted to be a neurosurgeon.”
This curiosity led Potter to earn her certified nursing assistant license at age 17, while still in high school. She spent her nights during college working at a nursing home as she earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
Caring for those with dementia only fueled her curiosity to understand and solve the mysteries of illness that plague those with neurological diseases and injuries.
