Giselle deals with everything the average med student has to tackle: a busy schedule, lack of sleep and a heavy coarse load. On top of that, she has to confront her past — a past filled with anxiety, depression and a suicide attempt. And she's not being shy about it.
While applying to medical school, didn't know what to put on her application, according to NPR. Should she talk about her first suicidal thought at age 10? Should she mention the mood swings and constant fights with her mom? Should she dare talk about her suicide attempt when she was 16?
"A lot of people were like, you don't say that at all," said Giselle, whom NPR only called by her first name. "Do not mention that you have any kind of weakness."
But she did. In her application, she wrote about how therapy and antidepressants helped her cope. She openly discussed how traveling to Brazil and working for an insensitive physician prompted her to consider going to medical school and becoming a kind, caring physician — not the type she'd worked for while in South America.
And it worked. She started classes at Madison-based University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in the fall of 2014.
Although struggles have been far from over, Giselle has been working to overcome them. After a panic attack during a test, she was called to meet with a group of medical school staff members who get involved when a student is struggling. The group asked Giselle if she could handle the stress of medical school. "I walked away from that and I was just so furious, like I felt so hurt," she said, according to NPR.
But with the help of her mentor, Christopher Hildebrand, MD, Giselle has kept the course and is still in medical school. "We need Giselles in medicine," Dr. Hildebrand said, according to the report. "We need people who are unafraid to have the insight to talk about not only their own struggles in life, but how that relates to others."