P/ How I Did It...
THIS IS WHAT A SUCCESSFUL STARTUP FOUNDER LOOKS LIKE. Candice Blacknall, Founder on Earning an MD/MBA Degree and Building a Successful Startup
Q: Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in medicine? My journey to medicine was absolutely non-traditional and I actually think medicine initially chose me rather than the other way around. I imagined myself working as a cultural anthropologist in the early parts of my formal education. Even though my military role was combat medic (68W), I didn’t have medicine on my radar until after my first deployment to Iraq. I had always valued the community service and team driven environment of the military and the diversity and creative environment of the social sciences, but forming a career that encompassed the two was not something I considered possible. Through my overseas service as a combat medic, I discovered that medicine was an opportunity to combine these seemingly different worlds. Much like an anthropologist, when I enter a patients’ room, I am entering a world separate from my own. I have to learn their language as I assist them in devising goals for their health and mapping the route to get there using their preferred means of achieving those goals. Simultaneously, I am part of a medical community with a vested interest in improving patient outcomes and community advocacy. As a non-traditional student, I view med-
