Today we’d like to introduce you to Russell Ledet, MD, PhD, MBA.
Hi Russell, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and raised by a single mother who was a certified nurse’s aide. Living on minimum wage, my mother would often bring home books from the residential homes for me to read, seeing as how we could not afford to buy books. That’s how I fell in love with reading. By the time I got to high school, we got into even more financial trouble and lost the home we were living in all my life. That’s when the dumpster diving started, and I can vividly remember my sister and I digging in dumpsters behind Sam’s Club for Digiorno pizzas. I decided the best thing to do was to join the U.S. Navy and see if there was another way out. Just before I left, I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart, and we have been married for 16 years now. I ended spending the next nine years in the U.S. Navy, with five years on active duty and the rest on reserve duty. While on reserve duty, I also worked as a security guard at a local Baton Rouge, LA hospital, which was my first exposure to the medical field. It’s also when I began to think becoming a physician was possible. I can remember asking so many doctors in the hospital for an opportunity to shadow them during undergraduate studies. You see, I was simultaneously attending Southern University and A&M College to study chemistry and biology. Most of them told me some form of “no”, with a few informing me that “security guards don’t become physicians.”
Eventually, one surgeon allowed me to shadow him and is still a mentor of mine today. As I graduated from Southern with degrees in chemistry and biology, I tried to get into medical school and did not succeed. At the same time, I got a call from a Dean at New York University who I had met while I was performing research during undergrad. He told me “I had what it took to become a scientist” and that I could think about medical school after graduate school. My wife and I packed our house up and moved to New York City, NY. I completed my Ph.D. in molecular oncology and tumor immunology in just under five years and was accepted into medical school just as I was finishing my Ph.D. It worked out just like that Dean said it would. On February 20, 2018, about 30 minutes after my second daughter was born, I got an email while we were in the recovery room. It was an email from Tulane University School of Medicine that stated that I was the recipient of a full-ride scholarship to medical school. My wife and I decided to leave New York City and move to New Orleans, Louisiana. The best part of this story is that on March 18, 2022, I found out I matched into Triple Board Residency at Indiana University, the only Black man in the country to do so.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There was nothing smooth about this road. From applying and reapplying for food stamps throughout every step of my educational journey to trying to support my family, it’s been quite a difficult task.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am beginning Triple Board Residency in June as a pediatrician, adult psychiatrist, and child and adolescent psychiatrist at Indiana University in Indianapolis, IN. As the only Black man to do so in 2022, I feel extremely proud to be carrying the mental health torch forward for so many young children who will benefit from my training.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The greatest lesson I learned was that failure is all a part of growing. FAILURE IS NOT FINAL!
What I am about to disclose is VERY unpopular in medical training.
I’m at the end of a grueling four-year journey to obtain a medical degree from Tulane School of Medicine and an MBA from the Freeman School of Business. If there is one thing I know for sure is that WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT OUR STRUGGLES AND FAILURES IN MEDICAL SCHOOL.
We all study perfectly, we all use Anki, we also score perfectly on exams, we all have perfect mental health practices, we all don’t struggle to make ends meet, and the list of perfections of medical students goes on and on. If you believe that, I also have some beachfront property on Mars for sale.
I learned I failed my last medical board exam of medical school the same day I had an interview for residency, November 17, 2021. I remember calling my wife, Mallory, and a few others I won’t name. I cried with all of them. I couldn’t believe I had failed at something I worked so hard not to fail at.
The first thing I thought was, “I knew I wasn’t smart enough to become a physician” then crept in the thought “maybe now folks will think I failed because I was too distracted”. The reality of it is the reason I failed was none of the above. I was still recovering from a hurricane and chose to take that exam. I was balancing fatherhood, husbandhood, and medical school.
Long story short, my wife told me to dry those tears up, prepare for that interview, and try again tomorrow to prepare to take that exam again. By the grace of God, I did really well the second time and learned I had passed this past Wednesday and will match into my specialty of choice real soon. I promised I would share this story because it’s a story that’s never told.
The lesson here is simple. Failure isn’t final, and we all fail at something. Don’t fake the funk. Let’s talk about it and conquer it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/drrussellledet
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drrussellledet/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/russell.ledet/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drrussellledet
