{"id":121257,"date":"2021-06-25T10:13:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T14:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=121257"},"modified":"2022-04-01T10:09:52","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T14:09:52","slug":"you-cant-give-up-you-were-meant-to-be-a-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/you-cant-give-up-you-were-meant-to-be-a-doctor\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou Can\u2019t Give Up: You Were Meant To Be A Doctor\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mays Alani was losing hope of ever becoming a practicing physician. She\u2019d graduated from the Medical University of Bahrain, but as a foreign-trained M.D. had difficulty getting a residency slot in the United States. So she came to UCF as a \u201cstandardized patient\u201d \u2013 someone trained to act as a real patient to help train medical students. There, she met the person who would become her biggest fan, her \u201cwork mom\u201d who kept insisting, \u201cYou can\u2019t give up. You are meant to be a doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today she is.<\/p>\n

As Alani graduated with honors from her UCF-HCA Healthcare neurology residency this month, she cried telling the story of Mary Ann Reiner, the colleague who sent her text messages saying, \u201cYou got this!\u201d before every residency interview. Now Alani is off to Yale for a fellowship in movement disorders such as those caused by Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy story,\u201d she says, \u201cis about hard work and believing in yourself. But I never would have made it without Mary Ann.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standardized patients (SPs) are a key part of the medical school curriculum. Reiner is in charge of training SPs on following a script of symptoms, questions and medical history designed to teach young medical students how to provide clinical care. Alani started out as standardized patient and after six months became an SP educator. But Reiner says she always knew Alani\u2019s future in healthcare<\/a> was bigger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted her to believe in herself,\u201d Reiner says.  \u201cI didn\u2019t want her to give up on her dream of being a doctor.  I knew she would be a great physician if she was given the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Reiner\u2019s encouragement, Alani applied to residencies and attended admissions interviews. The UCF-HCA residency selected her for its first cohort of neurology residents who trained at Osceola Regional Medical Center, the Orlando VA Medical Center and Nemours Children\u2019s Hospital. The program chose her as chief resident. As the first four neurologists graduated on June 18, they and program leaders talked about how Alani had helped lead the new program and the importance of her dedicated support and hard work to the team of young physicians.<\/p>\n