Ashley Otto
Ashley as a medical student
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
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I’m currently a medical student at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
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First generation, African American/Caribbean female
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There is no greater joy than helping someone reach success in their life. Success means many things but to me, a part of success is having health. It is equally as humbling because although we provide healing we also can fall to either end of the pendulum at anytime. This dynamic serves to motivate to help others as best as I can for as long as I am able to do it. In addition, as a first generation, Caribbean-American medical student, I have seen firsthand what deep distrust in the medical community can do to a person's psyche and at times be a large reason as to why healthcare is not sought out initially. Working to improve trust, help to educate the community, and provide excellent care are amongst many reasons as to why I chose medicine.
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A challenging moment in medicine for me was failing anatomy during my first trimester of medical school. Despite studying hard, I struggled to figure out how to best retain the information. Although I had done well in graduate school, there was vastly more information to learn in significantly less time. This coupled with not knowing about new learning tools especially for memorization (ex: anki) led me to take a moment and recollect myself. I ended doing a research year. Together with my PI we created a COPD lung fibroblast project from literature to bench and worked on several other projects including OA. For the following years, I continued to work on research, become involved in several leadership roles, and be a strong student. Through continued hard work, perseverance , and faith, I was able ultimately to become a published author on several abstracts with manuscripts pending. In addition, I retook anatomy, did well, became an anatomy tutor and also created a minority tutoring program to ensure less minorities failed the course. The very next year, only one student failed compared to seven the previous year. These efforts led to several academic, DEI, and research scholarships, You can overcome all setbacks if you continue the course!
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Representation Rehab is an amazing organization created by physicians and led by the many teammates in the healthcare system for this reason, it feels particularly organic. Often times organizations , although there is an intent to increase DEI, it many times falls to the side and becomes an after thought. Representation Rehab (just by its name) attracts diversity and its mission and purpose has absolutely been that. Equity is essential for leveling the uneven ground that minorities such as myself are on. Hundreds of years of lack of resources, access, and education cannot be easily undone but it starts with tangible and purposeful movements in the right direction. This is what RR is about and I absolutely an excited to be apart of it.
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Aspirations include become a general physiatrist OR specialize (still open) while cultivating community engagement, provide resources (ex: books, stipends, food - whatever is needed) education, and to serve the community in the ways they need. This also means getting to know the members of the community/communities I serve I finding out what are the biggest threats to their safety, health, etc and finding ways to mitigate these issues. I also want to increase the awareness of the field so that those in need can use PM&R as an option for their health if and when needed. Lastly, I am eager to improve access to rehab tools (ex: getting a proper walker, cane, finding an occupation therapist covered by a patient's insurance).
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Last updated 05/2022
