After graduating from John F. Kennedy High School here in San Antonio, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I never had too many strong male figures to give me much direction; the limited advice I got was, “go to school, finish school, don’t get anybody pregnant,” and I was like, “really, that’s the best you’ve got?”
At first, I thought I might join the military, but that didn’t work out. When I tried to join the Navy, the recruiter seemed like he wanted to “hang out” more than he wanted to recruit me. When I tried to join the Air Force, the recruiter made several racist comments that didn’t sit well with me. By the time I got to the Army I had already lost interest, even though I passed the test to get in.
Thus, for a variety of reasons, the military ended up not being the place for me. I thought about college, but even with scholarships I didn’t have the funds to go. After seeing my sister become a pharmacy technician, I decided to go to a trade school and became a medical assistant. After a year, I had graduated and was ready to work. By the age of 19 years, I had my first job as a physical therapy technician at a practice here in San Antonio.
Though I was happy about going into the medical field, after four and a half years I decided that there was more out there for me than $8.50 per hour. I knew that I loved sports, so I was hoping and praying that I could get involved with sports medicine. Eventually, I connected with an interviewer who remembered me from when I played football back at Kennedy. We hit it off and he ended up hiring me to work at his pediatric orthopedics and sports medicine practice, Youth Sports Treatment and Fitness. It was a great place to work because half of the building was a clinic, and the other half was a sports rehab facility. It had a track, a weight station, a physical therapy station, workout instructors, and great music to top it all off. Sometimes I would do a few workouts with them, and I made muscles sore that I didn’t even know I had.
In terms of professional development, I would go to Santa Rosa once a week, and this great guy named Gabriel helped me learn to cast from head to toe. As I built up my skills, I started taking more pride in my work and wanting to apply the things I had learned. However, the practice was moving in a different direction than I wanted to go, so I ended up leaving for a new job with an orthopedics practice in the medical center. Unfortunately, that only lasted a month: there was only one provider, and he and I just didn’t connect well, so soon I was on the job hunt again.
In 2008, I got a call from UT, and I really wanted to make the best of it and continue to sharpen my skills, so I took a job with the orthopedics department. I started out working at the Pavilion across from University Hospital, and eventually moved over to the MARC. During that time, I continued to sharpen my skills. I got more involved, came early and stayed late, and actively looked for ways to be helpful. In everything, I tried to teach others that it’s not about anyone being better than anyone else, but about lifting each other up, and getting better yourself in the process.
Working with UT Orthopedics was great, and I learned a lot during my time there. After a while, I started feeling burned out with the fast pace and the constant “climb up the professional ladder” mentality. I ended up taking a one-year hiatus to work at the Epic Help Desk, which was certainly different, but learning all the different features of Epic is like going back to school, and I felt like I wasn’t using the clinical skills I had acquired over the years. Before long, I started looking for a way to get back into clinical practice.
I tried to teach others that it's not about anyone being better than anyone else, but about lifting each other up, and getting better yourself in the process.
Last October, I transferred to UT Hill Country Primary Care, and since then I have been working with Dr. Svec, who does sports medicine in addition to family medicine. Everyone on the team works as a unit, and we try to back each other up and support each other. I work with the mentality of, “if I’ve got time to do it, bring it on.” April, Stephanie, Holly, and the other staff have really helped me get up to speed on what to do for primary care and how to manage these conditions, and I’ve been able to share my orthopedics knowledge when it’s needed. When I first started in primary care, my brain would light up every time a patient came in for tendonitis, or a fracture, or knee pain, but when a patient came in for hypertension, or IBS, or strep throat, or something else non-orthopedic, I would often need some help. I’m continuing to learn and adjust, but it has been good. Dr. Svec and I have worked well together, and I think we continue to learn from each other.
In orthopedics, I saw a new patient every 15 minutes, and that took all my energy. In primary care, I have time to add a little more “spunk.” I strongly believe that laughter is always a good medicine. If I can, I always make it my goal to make someone smile or laugh, and I try to show them that there is light at the end of whatever tunnel they are going through. There is always someone out there with something worse than what you have, so you may as well try to make a difference in someone else’s life. Being a Debbie Downer doesn’t make you feel better and doesn’t help anyone else, but you can make a big difference in someone’s life just by making them laugh.
Everyone has their issues in life, and not everything is something you can control. Even in those situations, you can always try to put a spark of happiness in someone else’s day. After fourteen years here at UT, I’m continuing to try to do just that.
Story: Will Young Photo Credit: Rudy San Miguel, Will Young