It is a great honor to have been selected to pen a monthly column about Medical Education and Health/Wellness in the publication The Hispanic Outlook on Education. In this, my maiden article, I wanted to take the time to introduce myself, and to explain why I asked a high school teacher and freelance sports writer (Danny Torres) and his daughter (Talia) to co-author this piece with me.

Talia was one of my first “real” patients when I became a practicing pediatrician in the 1990s. I see in Talia’s eyes and smile a reflection of myself 31 years ago when I, too, was just starting my clinical rotations as a third year medical student. Seeing pictures of her at her “White Coat Ceremony” brings back vivid memories of an education and life experience that for me spans nearly four decades (I started college in 1981, medical school in 1985, my internship in 1989, my residency in 1990 and became an attending pediatrician in 1993).

Looking Back

I remember the day I met Danny and his wife Roxanne like it was yesterday. A nurse at the hospital had recommended they bring their newborn to the practice I worked at on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which was right across the street from NY Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (where I had done my internship and residency) and a block away from my medical school, Cornell University Medical College. Danny, who is Puerto Rican, had no idea I was Hispanic until he met me in person, but within a few minutes of meeting me, I could sense that I inspired for him a world of endless possibilities for his much-adored infant daughter.

At the time Talia was born, Danny was a relatively new high school teacher who was also an avid Mets fan. He would go on to make a name for himself as a baseball reporter who spends every free minute in the dugout interviewing ball players. He is Roberto Clemente’s biggest fan.  I have no doubt, however, that had becoming a doctor been an option for him when he was in high school and college, he would have likely become a physician himself. He is a natural born caregiver by nature with a “Patch Adams” affinity for children and a magnetic personality that has him making friends out of casual acquaintances everywhere he goes.

The moment he met me 24 years ago, he imagined a future for his newborn daughter where ANYTHING was possible. We have had the good fortune of staying in touch throughout the years.

After graduating from high school, Talia was accepted to a very competitive, prestigious and uniquely integrated program between City College (CUNY) and Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Research whose mission is to “home grow” adolescents into health professionals interested in practicing in underserved urban communities (the program is now called the CUNY: School of Medicine). Talia has gotten through the tough first two years of “book” work that make up the early medical school voyage, and she is now embarking on the clinical years that will help her become a clinician. When she completes her residency and takes the other two steps of the required USMLE examinations, she will be uniquely poised to care for people from all walks of life, which includes two years working in an underserved community.

My Latina Heritage

My own Latina heritage cannot be denied when you meet me in person, but my name can be quite deceiving. The name “Marlene Jacqueline Wüst-Smith” is not nearly as “Hispanic” as my blonde-haired/blue-eyed first cousin’s name who was born “Alicia de la Asunción Rodriguez.”

When I was a child growing up in New Jersey, I was one of only a handful of brown students in my school, and many of my early teachers were surprised to learn that I had not heard nor spoken a word of English until I entered kindergarten as a 5-year-old. I had lived with my father and paternal grandparents in Spanish Harlem until the age of 4 (my parents split up when I was around 9 months old).

I was then raised by an aunt and uncle who, in 1968, had not yet mastered the English language when we moved from Poughkeepsie to New Jersey. I am convinced that it was my very “English-sounding” name that had my teacher Miss Rose convinced that I was initially just a shy quiet child. I was not pulled into ESL classes (which didn’t exist in the northern New Jersey public school I attended that first year), and when the first parent-teacher conference rolled around in November, the teacher couldn’t figure out whom my parents were apologizing about for not knowing English. Within three months of starting school, I had become as fluent in English as my classmates. Miss Rose was as surprised as my parents were to learn that I was fully bilingual.

I am the daughter of a Cuban father and a Dominican mother who immigrated to New York City in the early 1960s from their respective countries. My paternal grandfather, Josef Johann Wüst, made Havana his home after briefly living in Atlanta, Georgia, after WWI. It is from him that I inherited my stubborn, somewhat direct nature common to many Germans, and from him I also inherited the surname of “Wüst”— complete with the ‘umlaut.’ It is my very Anglo-American husband, James Keith Smith, who gifted me the very original last name of “Smith.”

These names have helped me in clinical practice. Whenever I start working in a new community, my name does not betray my heritage, and when I meet someone in person and recognize an accent or a cultural difference that I can connect to, I am able to readily switch into the family’s native tongue and make them feel less nervous about their health-related encounter.

A Medical Profession Calling

Like Talia, I knew that I wanted to be a medical doctor from a very young age. By the time I was 7, I had homed in on my specialty—I would become a pediatrician, a doctor who specializes in the care of children from birth through the age of 21.

Talia thinks she would like to become a pediatrician as well, but I have encouraged her to keep an open mind as she goes through her training. When she graduates from medical school in two years, she will be one of a handful of students to have been accepted into medical school as a high school student.

To know that I played a part in her career journey fills my heart with an inexplicable sense of pride and joy. Her father’s eyes saw a future for Talia that is daily becoming her reality. I am honored and blessed.

My goal for this monthly column at The Hispanic Outlook is to help guide and inspire other youth as they explore careers in health care, and to help educate and guide their professors and counselors to help them achieve their goals. •

Dr. Marlene Jacqueline Wüst-Smith’s Bio:

"When I started working with underserved children, I found my true calling." Dr. Wüst-Smith began her career treating the children of immigrant workers living in the Hamptons and moonlighting from her first job out of residency at a Long Island clinic.  She has served as the acting deputy commissioner of health and medical director for Long Island’s Suffolk Health Plan; helped develop programs regarding literacy, breastfeeding and childhood obesity at Charles Cole Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania; and became CEO of Do No Harm PLLC.