UNLV Medical Student Encourages Others to Aim High

After four years of medical school, 27-year-old Jessica Fields is weeks away from realizing her long-held dream of becoming a physician. By all appearances, the super-friendly and quick-to-smile Fields has everything under control. But you know what they say about appearances. Medical school hasn’t been easy. Fields agreed to talk about her experience, hoping to encourage other young people of color to pursue medical school. 

You got mostly A’s and B’s in high school. When did you decide that medical school should be in your future? 

I definitely wasn’t the super-smart, straight A student who aced every test growing up. But I always loved science and I had an amazing anatomy and physiology teacher my senior year at Palo Verde High School — who made learning about the human body so much more interesting. That’s when I decided to major in biology on the pre-med track. 

You were a student/athlete at the University of Redlands, where you still hold the school record for the 400 hurdles (61.05). How did you manage the course load and difficult class material? 

It’s all about time management, prioritization, and getting into a routine — which I had to learn fairly quickly to be successful. In college when I had time after practices, I would literally sit outside my professor’s office for hours and do homework and then go in and ask for help if I didn’t understand something. I knew myself. I learned to never be afraid to ask for help. 

How does the difficulty of med school compare to undergrad courses? 

Med school content itself is not particularly difficult. At Redlands, organic chemistry to me was harder to grasp. The difference is, in medical school there is a tremendous amount of information that you need to master in a short amount of time. You can’t wait until the last minute to study for a test because you will literally fail. I had to learn to study consistently, and it took a while to get my rhythm down to what worked best for me. 

Let’s talk about diversity in medical school. Over the past decade, there are now more women than men – which is a big change – but when it comes to people of color, specifically Black students, the number is not close to being representative of the population. 

I feel like growing up in Summerlin, I’ve always been one of the only Black students in my classes. I was used to it growing up — but I would later realize it took a toll on me. My self confidence wasn’t what it should have been, always trying to assimilate. I had to learn to love the ways I was different, my hair and my curls. My first year in medical school, I attended the Student National Medical Association AMEC conference, which is an organization of underrepresented minority medical students. That was the first time I’d ever been in a room full of three to four thousand Black physicians and medical students. I literally started crying, because I’d never experienced that before. My mentors at UNLV have been amazing and incredibly helpful, but it’s nice to know there’s a whole world of physicians out there that look like me. 

What’s your message to young people who might be considering medicine? 

Put your mind to it and go for it. And if you need help, don’t be afraid to ask. I feel like we need to reach kids earlier. Go into the elementary schools and show these kids, hey, I’m a doctor and I look like you. I want them to have the idea in their heads early in life that they can pursue medicine and become a doctor.