Shannon Fayson (second from right) Photo: University of Michigan Department of Surgery
The ‘dura mater’ handles medical training and motherhood with aplomb By Mary Dieter hannon Fayson’s Instagram handle is “dura.mater.” For a while, the 2011 DePauw graduate described herself on Twitter as “ENT resident surgeon. Mother. … Nerd.” She recently swapped out a few descriptors for this: “Trailblazer. Health equity advocate.” Let’s parse. The handle: Fayson was attending a boot camp before starting medical school at Ohio State University, listening to a lecture about the coverings of the brain. “The thickest layer is called the ‘dura mater,’ and that means ‘tough mother,’” Fayson said. “My friend looked at me and said, ‘Shannon, you’re a dura mater.’ I’m like, I am a ‘dura mater.’ That name ever since then has stuck with me.” She’s a mother: Indeed, Fayson, an
ear, nose and throat surgeon starting her third year of a five-year residency at Michigan Medicine, is the mother of 9-year-old Aiden, born on the first day of her senior year finals week at DePauw. The biochemistry major and philosophy minor had made arrangements with her professors to take her exams late and, upon returning home after a cesarean section, “it was studying time. One arm I had studying; the other arm, I was trying to breastfeed my son. Twenty-one years old. It was so overwhelming.” Still, she did well on her finals, taken while friends watched the baby, and then, with her pastor caring for Aiden, “I walked on graduation day.” She’s tough: “I remember being nervous for Shannon as she was heading into that Chem 440 class, one of the
toughest in the major. But I needn’t have been,” said Dan Gurnon, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. “She sat right up front, always positive, always engaged, working as hard as she could, never asking for special treatment. In fact, the only time she mentioned her pregnancy in the context of classwork was when she told me it was likely she would go into labor sometime during finals week, and that we might need to reschedule the exam. Never before had I seen such a strong work ethic and positive attitude. She’s amazing. At the end of that semester I knew that, if medical school was what she wanted, she would get there.” Two years later, Fayson was listening to a lecture about otolaryngogoly when “the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.” She knew this was her specialty, but the speaker was a white man, and she wondered if a black woman could fit in. Immediately after the lecture, she googled “African-American otolaryngologists in Columbus, Ohio,” and learned that Minka Schofield was an associate professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at
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