I usually blog about women’s health but I wanted to depart a bit from that today because of a letter that a young woman named Jacinta sent me.

Jacinta read my memoir, The Ditchdigger’s Daughters, and found in the story the encouragement she needed to become a doctor herself. But let me allow her to tell it in her own words:

“I am 19 years old. I just finished reading your book and it truly inspired me. I want to work with children in the medical field and reading about the obstacles that you overcame to work in the medical field really encouraged me to work harder to accomplish my dream. The thing that really encouraged me was at the end of the book when you and your sisters were sitting around reminiscing about the things that your dad had taught you down through the years … ‘Daddy was the bow, we were the arrows and he aimed high. He didn’t say midwives, he said doctors. He didn’t say dental assistants, he said dentist.’ He always encouraged you all to be leaders and to be the best at whatever you did. That really stuck with me when I read it.

“I can be a leader. I love kids and I always knew that I wanted to work with them, but I never really decided how I wanted to work with them. So I decided that I would either be an obstetrician or a pediatrician.

“… I watched your interview on C-SPAN and I remember you saying that your father told you that the only person that can stop you is you. Well I’m not going to let me stop me so I decided to work towards all my dreams.”

As those who have already read The Ditchdigger’s Daughters know, my father was a blue collar laborer and my mother cleaned houses for a living. But they were determined to see their five daughters do better. They insisted that we work hard, get as much education as we could, and aim for the top. My father had a dream that we would all become doctors. Two of us are physicians now, one is an oral surgeon, another became a lawyer with a Ph.D.,  and one, a court reporter.

I want to take this opportunity to speak to all those like Jacinta, whose families may not have all the advantages. You can make a better life for yourself. If my sisters and I could do it, you can do it. Believe in yourself and be willing to work harder than you ever imagined possible. Then, work harder still. Stay in school, study like your life depends on it (because, in a way, it does), and don’t let anything hold you back, especially not your own negative notions about the limits placed on you from the outside.

And I want to say thank you to Jacinta. Knowing that my book touched you means so much to me.

It’s letters like yours that have inspired me to begin working on a new memoir that picks up where The Ditchdigger’s Daughters left off. I hope that this book, too, will persuade readers to reach higher, study harder, and pursue their dreams.

– Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH