Miss Kaia Woods will be receiving a $1,000 scholarship to attend XULA in the fall
Ever since I was nine years old, I have wanted to be a doctor and work in the cardiology field. I believe the main contributions to this career choice are the deaths of my grandfather and my godfather. They were extremely important to me and when they both died of heart problems, I thought--and still do believe--that something could've been done to prevent their passings. The grief I felt has pushed me to find a way to prevent anyone else from feeling that pain of loss over preventable causes again. Also, helping people and making a positive impact on the world are things I have always aspired to do. I believe that becoming the great cardiothoracic surgeon I know I can be will not only help my future patients, but also young girls that have the same dreams that I do.
In the past, I have volunteered at veteran shelters, women's shelters, food banks, and shadowed seasoned physicians that practice in fields in which I am interested. Volunteer work and helping other people has always been something I love to do. Knowing that I have made an impact on people's lives--no matter how small an impact it may have been--is extremely rewarding. Two of the physicians I shadowed were Dr. Lance LaMotte M.D. FACC (Fellow of the American College of Cardiology), the chief cardiologist at Baton Rouge General Hospital, and Dr. Joseph Boucree M.D., an orthopedic spine surgeon and Xavier University of Louisiana alumnus that owns his own practice in Slidell, Louisiana. Shadowing both of these amazing and dedicated doctors taught me the true value of becoming a physician. The value is in the relationships made with the people that are helped every day. Being a certified physician means caring about the well-being of the patients that rely on and trust their doctors with their lives. Seeing that trust and care from both patient and doctor in person is an experience that I will never forget and one that I hope to have as well in the years to come.
I chose Xavier as the institution where I want to continue my education because of the immediate connection I felt the first time my father took me. As an alumnus, my father took me on our own tour of the school. He showed me where he studied engineering and I even had the privilege to meet his physics professor, Dr. Murty Akundi. Dr. Akundi still remembered my father coming to every single one of his office hours and reminisced on how he told my dad to go to a challenging graduate school. If it was not for Dr. Akundi’s wisdom my father would have attended Notre Dame University for graduate school instead of Cornell University.
Another professor, Dr. Janet A. Privett, helped me when I was taking Advanced Placement Chemistry my junior year. I was having a difficult time with the course and Dr. Privett took the time to talk more with me about the material while also helping me regain my confidence. She told me that I seemed to completely understand the material, but my teacher was grading extremely hard and offered tips on how to combat that. I believe that if it wasn’t for her and my tutor, Dr. Briannca Marshall, I would not have finished that quarter with as strongly as I did.
Dr. Akundi and Dr. Privett are just some of the prime examples that professors at Xavier really care about their students, especially the ones that make it clear that they care about their futures. Also, attending Xavier’s SOAR (Stress On Analytical Reasoning) program last year and being able to stay on campus for three weeks gave me the opportunity to see what the Biology and Chemistry departments have to offer and create lasting relationships with my peers. The kind of nurturing environment that Xavier University of Louisiana offers its students is exactly what I believe I need in order to be the very best doctor I know that I can be.
