Obituary of a Student Doctor
Alexandra Giselle (De la Rosa) Argento-Berrio, MS1-4 2014-2019
Giselle Argento-Berrio (née De la Rosa), was a bright, energetic young lady. On August 18th, 2014 she walked across Memorial Union and was ceremonially bestowed her white coat as part of the entering class of 2018 at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She was full of life and optimism, by the newly passed Affordable Care Act, she applied to medical school eager to care for immigrant communities as her own and become a leader at a time of systemic change.
She entered medical school on a full-tuition merit scholarship, a testament to her extraordinary ‘pre-med’ trajectory. From her native Colombia where she left at the age of 7 to the US. She moved alone to rural China at 17, she lived in a favela outside Rio de Janeiro, huts across rural Ghana and protested at universities in South Africa all before the age of 21.
As she embarked on the journey to apply to medical school, she was the very definition of hustle and heart; she worked as a birth doula, a diabetes clinical researcher, a ticket seller, a beer tasting marketing specialist, ran a marathon to raise money for homelessness, canvassed political campaigns, taught sexual health classes to hundreds across Chicago, while completing her sociology degree at the the University of Illinois at Chicago and graduate public health certificate from the University of Nebraska. Unbeknownst to her, the hours of studying for the MCAT, nor her long list of accomplishments would prepare her for what was to come.
The only Latinx student amidst hundreds in medical school, she viscerally learned how medical training was built to exclude her and her community. The budding young doctor-to-be would undoubtedly struggle with this; academically, socially, emotionally.
She found herself in front of the Student Promotions Committee three times in two years. Sitting in the center of a semicircle with a provided box of tissues, a council of doctors, mostly old white men, surrounded her, interrogating her existence, her “issues”, her ability. She requested a reprieve, the option to ‘decompress’ the academic requirements over an extra year. She was repeatedly denied this- being told by the Committee that this was not in her best interest. After eventually continuing to struggle and fail ‘enough’ to their satisfaction, they allowed her to go forth with the schedule adjustment.
She would later learn the implications of losing the only Latinx student of that graduating class carried financial implications for the School. The scrutiny was not from wisdom, but sheer self-interest. With 48 hour notice prior to the start of her second year of classes, her scholarship was rescinded. She had ‘successfully met criteria for promotion’ but did not ‘successfully complete all requirements’ by withdrawing from a class and taking it months later. This letter was signed by the very people that had advised her to do just that.
It was merely a cumulative moment of many that slowly shattered ideals of a profession of benevolence, a noble community of like-minded peers and mentors invested in her success.
During her third and ‘extra’ year, along with her medical school classes, she dedicated herself to a state-wide health study, amplifying the voices of formerly incarcerated neighbors and the public health implications of crimeless revocations. Reflecting on her own dark moments and accompanying three fellow medical sudents through suicidal crises in the span of two months she found herself again in the administrative offices, wondering how many others were silently suffering. Their answer was simple “this happens sometimes'’.
She began to see the face the demon of entering a profession where suicide is an occupational hazard. Quadruple increase the risk of the general public to be exact. She was emboldened to bring light to the issue and her trauma faced so far and in 2016 was featured in WNYC’s Only Human podcast and NPR’s All Things Considered. Becoming the most listened to health story of the year at that point, thousands would be inspired by her honesty and advocacy. Giselle was catapulted from lonely medical student to mental health advocate overnight, and found second wind for continuing the path.
As the 2016 presidential election approached, Giselle recollected her thoughts of a presidency that had spanned her whole adult life, given so much inspiration to so many and bestowed her US citizenship. One evening, she wrote President Obama a casual letter. It would become one of the daily ten given to him personally. And in May 2016, a beautiful response of pride, perseverance and good wishes for her upcoming wedding came from the President himself.
The promotion from preclinical to clinical training rotated Giselle across rural Wisconsin at the perilous time following the 2016 presidential election. In every corner of the state, Latinx patients would seem to ‘appear’ to clinics hearing that a doctora was in town. With great joy and heartbreak she cared for them all and more, saying goodbye after a few weeks to the next rotation.
Always wearing her heart on her sleeve and eager for acts of kindness, she was caring beyond many's comprehension to patients, colleagues and strangers alike. The clinical rotations allowed her caring spirit to shine, but always under the shadow of an institutional system created for her exclusion.
She had to learn to navigate the daily painful reminders of becoming a Brown female physician in America; the rejections from patients, the commentary of preceptors, the misconceptions as the cleaning person, the assistant, the foreigner, the anything but the physician she was working so hard to become. No matter how much she studied, how hard she worked or how high she scored, her skin was not something she could remove at the end of the day as her white coat.
While the introduction to clinical medicine was an amazing experience of growth, the budding now Dr. Argento-Berrio overshadowed the fading of Giselle’s essence and passion. Every rotation was an exercise in dissociation from the very body of her home and a test of her ability to remove herself from her identity to become what was expected of a doctor. While her nurturing spirit of a clinician grew, her passion for betterment of society dwindled. By the time she approached the bestowing of the magical “MD” behind her name only a shadow of her was left.
Nonetheless, she refused to succumb to the usual or expected path, in 2018 she started a business, Konnectate!, managing social media marketing for BIPOC-owned small businesses of Madison. She took her fun dancing spirit and became a certified WERQ instructor to share health and dancing to as many people as possible.
Disillusioned and shackled to mounting debt, she grudgingly entered the “Match” for a residency position. While student Giselle became Dr. Alexandra Giselle Argento-Berrio on May 12, 2019 amidst celebration and triumph, her loss went unnoticed. It was with a global pandemic, the sleep deprivation, the forced relocation, the baptism in human suffering that is postgraduate medical training that it became evident that despite all efforts, Giselle had not survived. Rather, as a ‘good doctor’, Dr. Giselle became skilled in the suppression of humanity, wellness and desire, including her own.
It is now, as board certified family medicine physician, Dr. Argento-Berrio we acknowledge and realize her passing and celebrate it today. She was an infectious inspiring soul, who is deeply missed by all she encountered. A casualty like thousands of idealists destroyed in this process, her brave and compassionate spirit lives on in Dr. Argento-Berrio. Please honor her memory today by dreaming big and being kind to a stranger.
