Susan O'Malley, an ER doctor, shares how perseverance shaped her life. She was rejected by 42 U.S. medical schools in 1985, reapplied, and got into Mount Sinai at 35, six months pregnant. A childhood accident damaged her teeth, but years of dental work let her smile by age 9.
Questions this video answers
June 1985.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine (New York City).
35 years old; she was six months pregnant and unmarried when accepted three weeks before school started.
At 9 years old.
Chapters
Hi. Good morning. I can still officially say good morning. So last week, when the folks at Inbound were tying up loose ends and getting the conference, putting the finishing touches on the conference, they sent out emails to speakers giving them last minute advice. You pick up your badge over here, you register over here. And as a bold speaker, I was told that the bold talk had changed. Actually, the word was graduated to this room because it now held 1,000 people. And a chill ran through me and I thought, well, is it going to be scarier to speak to 1,000 people, or is it going to be scary to speak to a room that can hold 1000 if only 20 show up? So I would just like to start by thanking you for showing up. Thank you. So I'm here to talk about perseverance, and I can get really jazzed about perseverance because I can really backtrack every great accomplishment in my life straight to perseverance, including standing here on this stage. And I'll tell you that story in a minute. But before I do, I just want to say perseverance is vital to your success. And I believe it. And I believe it so much, I'm going to say it again. Perseverance is vital to your success. And if you believe it too, I know the folks at Inbound would really appreciate it if you would tell somebody. So let me tell you how I got here. A call went out for speakers, I filled out the application, I hit submit, and then I waited. And when I felt like I was waiting a really long time, although I'm sure you're going to be surprised to find out that I am a New Yorker. And so we have a different scale. We use a different scale for waiting, but it really felt like a really long time to me. And so I sent an email and I asked, did you get my application? And I got an email back and they said, yes, we got your application. And so I waited again, and then I sent another email and I said, could you just tell me the status of my application? Now, this is where it got interesting because this is where I found out that I was one of 75 people who were being considered for the remaining 18 spots. And no matter how you feel about math, in that particular order, those are not good numbers. So I knew I had to distinguish myself from 74 other people. So I sent another email and I said, I just want you to know that if what I was going to speak about didn't fit into your lineup, I could also speak to this, this, this and that. And I gave them Four other choices. But I wasn't done because I sent them yet another email. And I said, I would just like you to know that if anyone drops out at the last minute, you can call me. I'm your girl. I'm here for you. And then the deadline for speakers came and went and I didn't hear anything. I actually toyed with sending another email. But seven days later, I got an email. And that email said, congratulations, you have been given one of the last two spots to speak at the inbound conference. And that is how I came here to speak to you about perseverance. So I'm going to tell you two stories about perseverance. I picked these two stories for two reasons. First, I think that both stories really illustrate very nicely the power and the impact of perseverance. Second, I really want you to remember me one of these stories you may or may not remember. The other story, I guarantee you, you will never forget. I learned perseverance from my mother. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know it had a name. All I knew was my mother would never take no for an answer. When you're 8 years old, that's very annoying. But I did not grow up like that, with that kind of determined spirit. I actually grew up quite the opposite. I had no fight in me at all. And true perseverance didn't come out for me until I was 33 years old. It was June of 1985. I was living in Southern California. I was finishing up my last year of college. When you're finishing up your last year of college at 33, you're called a returning student, as kindly as they can say it. I had all my medical school applications in. I was taking a couple of easy breezy classes. Graduation was in my sight, and life was good. And it all came crashing down in June. Did you ever get a rejection letter? Yeah, In June of 1985, I had 42 of them. I was rejected from every medical school in the country. And I did not see that coming out of every worst case scenario that I could picture in my head. Being rejected from every school in the country never made the list. I was devastated. I mean, I was 33. It took me 33 years to figure out what my dream was. And now I was about to be shut out of it. And I thought, oh, no, this is not happening. I am not going down without a fight. And so I knew that the only way that I could get myself out of this was to apply to medical school again, which I did. Now I say that like it's nothing. Oh, I applied to medical school again. Applying to medical school is a year long process. There are multiple applications, multiple essay questions, multiple interviews. It's demanding, it's honestly sometimes demoralizing. But I did it. And the second time around, it worked. I was accepted to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City three weeks before school started. I was 35 years old. I was six months pregnant and I didn't have a husband. But that is a story that will clearly take longer than the 12 minutes I have been allocating. Now, I gave you a little snippet about my mother, and I want to circle back and tell you this last story about my mother. When I was a baby, my mother, my father and I lived on the second floor of a two story house in an apartment. And the apartment door had a faulty lock, so that if someone came in downstairs, a gush of air would come up the hallway stairs and ever so gently push our apartment door open. And so in order to know that you were secure in the apartment, you had to deadbolt the lock. Well, one Saturday morning, my mother came home with bags of groceries and forgot to lock the door. I was roaming around in one of those little walkers. Someone came in downstairs. Our door opened. Down the stairs I went, me and the walker traveling head first, I slammed my little baby face into a steel radiator at the foot of the stairs. The impact sliced my tiny little front baby teeth in half. Half lay on the dirty hallway floor and the other half got jammed into my gums. Now, eventually, those little baby teeth made their way down, but everyone held their breath to see what would happen next. My permanent teeth grew in. When I was five years old, clearly premature, instead of both facing forward, one was on a 90 degree angle and the other was on a 45. They were brown and they were pockmarked and they were jagged. They were horrifying. I remember what they looked like to this day. They were horrifying. And my mother took me from dentist to dentist to dentist, year after year after year, because with all good intentions, everyone had the same pull them out and give her false teeth. I was seven years old. Now, my young mother didn't know what the answer was, but she knew that wasn't it. And so, with me in one hand and my new baby brother under her arm, we went to more dentists and more and more until she found somebody with an idea. And it was just an idea because he didn't know if it would work. But he said, why don't we put braces on them so they at least both face forward and then we can file them down and fit her for a crown, which is what they did. And at 9 years old, for the first time in my life, I smiled without holding my hand up to cover my mouth. And that is the power of perseverance. Make no mistake about it. Where would I be had my mother listened to the second dentist, the third dentist, the fourth dentist? Where would I be had I listened to 42 medical schools who said, we don't think you're a doctor material? After I graduated, I went on to become an emergency room doctor. Over the years, I treated thousands of patients and I saved hundreds of lives. Where would those people be and where will you be tomorrow based on the choices that you make today? So if it's in your heart or it's in your head, never give up. Thank you.
