How I overcame my learning disabilities to become a physician | John Rhodes | TEDxCharleston

I was 10 years old and I was in a canoe and I was paddling that canoe fighting as hard as I could in a river called traditional education. Now it was the last day of fourth grade, so he was very excited for summer, but he was trying. to hear what my mom had to say to the teacher and she was saying that my son is here, his little brother is in first grade and he can read all the books in the house, but he can't read any books in the house, alone look at the pictures I'm not sure my fourth grade teacher said what my mom wanted because the next thing I know I was on my canoe going to a new school, I got to the new school and the teachers said, you know, We evaluate him and he reads. at the level of a first grader, so we really need her to repeat fourth grade so she has time to catch up with all the other kids, I said mom, look, I passed fourth grade, I just did it by looking at the pictures, she He said, it's okay.

So the teachers came up and said, let's put this bright orange sticker all over the handle of your paddle. It says special education class and that way, when you paddle around that new school, everyone will know exactly where you are. So I did it and made it to seventh grade. My seventh grade science teacher took me aside and said, John, look, you actually know the material, you just did poorly on the test, so he put me in a separate room and gave me. no time limit he made me take the test and I got an A so I walked out there was no one else in the room and he graded it and I thought this is great but nothing changed.

I kept paddling with my orange sticker and got up. 10th grade and my friends came and said John, look, you can't be in a special education class the rest of your life, they don't have that in college, so they came and took down that freshly peeled off seven-year-old sticker. I took it off my paddle and threw it. I was kind of paddling without an orange sticker. I received my report card. He had all the qualifications. Everyone patted me on the back, but then this girl from my class, blonde and tall, walks up and says John, look.

It doesn't mean anything to get A's in regular general classes and I said well, I asked my parents, I asked the teachers and they said John, no, no, you don't read fast enough to keep up with the kids in those classes. , so I kept paddling, I saw this beautiful white rock, everyone sliding next to the rock, I approached the white rock and boom, it just hit the bottom of my canoe, it had a big hole in the water running down, I looked up down and said sitting down, it was like he was looking. to my parents and they said s-a-t and they said they had tears in their eyes and they said look, you did so bad that we talked to your teachers and we're just not sure that college is going to be for you and I told them, you know.

I'm going anyway, so I put my foot in that hole and paddled all the way to North Carolina State University and got into pre-med and my mom was getting phone calls from all the other people along the way. along the bench that said Wow, your son, he's in the newspaper, he's at a major university, in the newspaper because he's on the dean's list and all of a sudden it was amazing all these other canoes, the pre-med canoes, they were everything. what were they. coming to my canoe and they wanted me to teach them histology and biochemistry classes and they wanted to buy all my note cards which took me 10 hours to make, but I told them: you know what it's like to fight, so I'll help you. you and I will help you and you will help everyone so my pre-med advisor said John, you have to take the mcat, the medical school admissions test, it has three sections, each section has 15 points and you have to get to At least an eight on each of those three sections to be above the national average and you have to do much better than that to actually get into medical school, so I paddled out to those 15 foot rocks and slid down both of them. first science sections with No problem at all, but I got to the third section, the verbal reading section, and the rock was uneven and I couldn't read anything written on the rock, it didn't make any sense, so I just backed up in my comment, my previous one. medical advisor she said what do you mean you got a one on the verbal reading section of the mcat you get a one if you write your name on the paper i have never seen this before she said this is like you get a zero while reading i told her well, what I do? and she said, well, you clearly know how to read, just go take it again, you probably did it wrong, so I went back to that rock and went around the little mossy edges that were there until I reached a two and I slid back on my canoe and I broke my paddle in half and I was drifting in that canoe looking at the beautiful blue sky with a broken paddle, I stood up to the edge of that canoe and looked over the edge and there were all these pre-med canoes at the that I had been helping, were sliding over the horizon towards their medical schools, I thought you know this doesn't work for me, so I bent down and picked I put that paddle back together and taped it up and then I rowed for three hours until an island.

There was a short lady who lived there, she was a reading specialist and I said to her lady, can you teach me to read faster? She said yes, but it will take intense work for at least a year. I said, Well, you know how good I am at hard work, so let's do it. So we did, she jumped into my canoe a year later and we paddled back to that verbal reading. foot of rock and I climbed around those words and jagged edges in the moss and I got up to the six that was hanging on the jagged edge of a six like this and I said I got to the six, I can't go any higher, this is going to work, she He said, John, you're going to have to accept that being a doctor is not for you.

I said the anchor worked for me, so I took my canoe, put it on my shoulder and slammed it into the river. I went up. On that rock I dropped it on the other side I jumped in the canoe and I paddled to the medical schools and I went to this prestigious private university called Duke said I could have an interview, no and I paddled to the University of North Carolina. They may have an interview. No, I went to Brody School of Medicine in eastern North Carolina. I said: Look, I worked for a year with that lady on the island.

Can you interview me? They said you're the most determined person we've ever seen. In a little while, so we're going to interview you, so I brought this man with gray hair and a long white coat into that interview, John says, you have to answer one thing for me, you're going to have to explain why that short lady that you stumbled upon from your canoe on the other side of the rocks there, why did she write us a letter saying that you don't read fast enough to be a medical student? I told him I don't know why that nice lady was trying to capsize my canoe, but let me explain something to you, sir, it's not that I don't know how to read, I know how to read, I just read slower, so I will study 10 or 12 hours a day, which is twice as much as the average medical student, if that's what I need. to do it he says you're in so I rowed to the medical school and I went in there and I got some beautiful stickers you know a green sticker said maximum score in histology an orange sticker that said maximum score and about and uh gross anatomy and I got this beautiful blue sticker that said 99 on your biochemistry final exam and suddenly my biochemistry teacher was paddling towards me with his canoe when he tied himself to my canoe and said John, I think he cheated on my exam.

I said well, sir. I didn't cheat on your test, I took four cards and glued them all together, I wrote all the possible paths and then I learned it visually, it was actually easy and he said, well, no one else did that well on the test, so I'm going to ask you the questions orally to make sure you know the answers. He said it's okay. He asked me all the questions orally. I answered each and every question correctly, including the question I had missed. He said: Well, why did you do it right? You did it well.

You could add a perfect score. No one has ever gotten a perfect score on my final exam. I told him sir. Look, I just misread the word. I knew the answer. I want you to be my biochemistry research assistant all summer. I told him yes. so I paddled out and did that and then I went to second year medical school and I was tired, it's hard to do it 10 hours a day and my canoe started filling up with water, it was filling up and my canoe was completely full of water, I thought. You know, I could leave my canoe and my paddle right here, go out and swim home and tell everyone they're right or I could just hold on tight to my paddle and go down with my canoe and let my life go and avoid. all the humiliation I didn't like those ideas so I adopted a dog I put him in the back he paddled well I studied 10 hours a night and I made it and I became a doctor and then my dog ​​and I jumped in the canoe and paddled here to Charleston and I started my pediatric residency and they assigned me a resident advisor that I had to do clinic with every day, right?

You have to go to the clinic every day and one day I got there, this man was an older gentleman. He had big thick toes and brown shoes and he jumped into my canoe and he reached out and took the fight away from me I was like no one had ever done that before I said what's going on he said well you failed the US medical licensing exam. USA and he has not done well in the internal exams I told him what do I do sir he gives me these articles one article says

learning

problems in medical students the other article says dyslexia he said come with me he took my paddle and took me through the Ashley River to her friend who tested me for hours and then her friend comes out and says, I have no idea how this young man got through medical school.

I don't think it's possible. Read at a lower secondary school level. He can't spell anything. He wrote wrong. the word doctor and he is one and I said sir, look, this is very, very simple, determination can outwit

learning

disabilities

, it's not that difficult, he said, well, there is one thing that is your strong point, spatial intelligence visual, he scored in the top percentile for that, that means you are very good at imagining concepts in your mind, I said sir, look, my mom and I knew since fourth grade that you could just look at the pictures, he said, well, that's what you should do with your career so I rowed towards a career in cardiology where I do visual spatial imaging to move catheters through your body to your heart and repair your heart and I'm pretty good at it and I've been pretty successful at it. that after I was diagnosed at 29 years old.

Finally, at 38 years old, that prestigious private university that wouldn't even give me two seconds for an interview decides to hire me to

become

head of cardiology for 10 years, so if someone out there is rowing and fighting against the current like me and it's not weird that there are four things and these are the only four things you need in your canoe. Perseverance because we do not overcome learning

disabilities

. I know if someone told you yes, but no, I still have them. a lifelong commitment so you have to get very good at moving the canoe no matter what sticker they put on your paddle and number two is resilience when setbacks happen and they will happen in this world we live in you have to put your foot over the hole duct tape the paddle climb over the rock but don't give up the third thing is adaptability you can be successful with learning disabilities but you have to be willing to adapt to your weaknesses master the use of your strengths and the last thing you you need to have in your The canoe is courage because when people come to you and tell you that you know you're not fast enough or that you can't keep up with the other kids or that you really need to accept that you can't be a doctor, then you just you have to do it.

Find the courage to trust what is in your heart.