Inspired by reading!

Hoang Luu and her tutor, Diane Bentley, read the inspiring stories of 100 immigrant women in the book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, by Elena Favilli. Hoang was inspired to write the report below about one of the rebel girls, Velma Scantlebury. We both recommend Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls to other learners. 

There are three things I learned about Dr. Velma Scantlebury.

By Hoang

First, Velma was born on October 6, 1955 in Barbados.When she was a child, she loved to go to the beach with her dad. She knew that she wanted to take care of people and her dream was to be a doctor. Velma and her family moved to the United States when she was fifteen . It was a hardest time for her at her new school in Brooklyn, New York. She got bully from the other students about her hair, accent, clothes and the darkness of her skin. Even though a counselor in school didn’t believe in her and suggested that she should get a job instead of college. 

Second, Velma graduated in 1977 with her BS in biology, she was accepted at both Yale School of Medicine and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was geared towards medicine because she loved the idea of being able to do things the way she wants. She was very stubborn and determined but that seemed to fit well with her goal. As first, she wanted to be a pediatric surgeon , she needed to do research, she fascinated by the body functions and turn out to be in transplant surgery.

Velma performed over 2000 transplants and published many peer-reviewed papers in order to share her knowledge with others. She also worked hard to address inequality in the medical field and encouraged girls to become surgeons which seems very hard. Velma had been doing in transplant surgery for 32 years.She retired in October 2020. Now she is doing consulting and teaching and she is a professor of surgery. But she was the first African-American woman transplant surgeon of the United States. 

Velma was bullied by the other students because of her race but she managed to overcome her difficulties. Learning English seems very difficult to me but I will continuous to go back school studying and fit in America one day.