From speechless to words of wisdom

Khevna p. joShi

MD Class of 2025

When I was a young child, even before the age of 5, I was diagnosed with a serious speech disorder. Whenever I spoke, I found that it was very difficult for me to get words out of my mouth – they almost felt as if they were stuck in my throat, and words that started with vowels were especially difficult for me to say. This heavily impaired my childhood social development and relationships with many people, including my teachers, my friends at school, and to some extent, my parents, although as my support system, they were the ones who understood me best.

I started seeing a speech pathologist when I was 5 years old. After attending a few speech therapy sessions, my therapist told me that my disorder would not improve. She informed my family and I that I would continue to experience this difficulty with speaking, that my development would be stalled, that I would not perform well academically, and that I would not be able to pursue a college or career of my choice. But my parents refused to believe this, as they were strongly of the belief that with a positive mindset and optimistic attitude, anything is possible.

It was at this time that I realized that my progress would not move forward in a straight line. My path would not be as simple and straightforward as that of my peers. It would have many more obstacles and speed bumps of its own, and at times, I knew that I would need to

move backwards or even in unexpected directions to make any forward progress.

While I continued to attend these speech therapy sessions for 7 years, my parents drew me a wheel that they stuck to my door. On this wheel, they listed all the positive qualities that I had – my kindness, how outgoing I was, how loving and caring I was, my intelligence, my laugh, and more. They told me that instead of focusing on the negatives of my speech disorder and the problems that it has been causing in my life, I should focus on my positive character traits and capitalize on those the best I could. I would be lying if I wrote that there were no tough times, but I can say that with my new growth mindset that my parents inspired me to adopt, it was much easier for me to overcome those times, and in fact grow from those experiences. While focusing on those positive characteristics and continuing my therapy treatment, I was eventually completely cured of my disorder – to this day, I am attending medical school, was able to attend an Ivy League college, and have given multiple public presentations with ease, including a TEDx talk.

Upon reflecting on this experience, I realized that if I had not moved sideways to strive to achieve all that I hoped to, I would not have internalized all the values that I have instilled as part of my belief system today. I have walked through a door that I thought was permanently shut, perpetually on the horizon, just by being mindful and looking at the positive side of things and focusing on the present, and not what the future may or may not bring. By adopting the same mentality, I continue to walk through several doors today whenever I encounter challenges to overcome, by viewing them as problems to be solved rather than looming issues to be feared. By living today to the fullest and best of my ability, I was able to surpass my illness, become the better person that I wanted to be, and most importantly, leave that door open for many, many more behind me with similar stories.