Dr.
Cynthia Kudji Sylvester, 49, and Dr. Jasmine Kudji made headlines this year for becoming the first mother-daughter duo to attend medical school at the same time and match at the same hospital system.
The duo will now start their careers together as medical residents in the Louisiana State University Health System. Dr. Jasmine Kudji will be one of 11 incoming surgical residents at LSU Health New Orleans while Dr. Kudji Sylvester will be a family medicine resident at LSU Health Lafayette.
It’s been 27 years in the making for Cynthia, she always wanted to be a physician. Her family moved from Ghana to the US when she was just two years old, and she was inspired to become a doctor during a trip back to West Africa with her family.
Cynthia told in USA Today while visiting West Africa, a young girl approached Cynthia and her mother, asking them to help her sick child. “Seeing that disparity really, it shook me, you know, and it made me want to do something about it.”
However, Cynthia had to put her dream of becoming a doctor on hold at the age of 22 when she became pregnant with her daughter. Instead, Cynthia started out her career as a nursing assistant before becoming a registered nurse two years later.
“I had to put my dream of being a physician on hold because I needed a job,” she said. “I needed to bring in an income. And so that’s where being a nurse came in.”
In 2013, when Jasmine was in college, Cynthia enrolled at a medical school and the rest is history.
Jasmine grew up visiting her mother in hospitals and watching her work as a nursing assistant, something she says inspired her to become a doctor.
“It’s just something that was always a part of my life… so much of it was just natural,” she said.
Jasmine started medical school in 2015, two years after her mother, with the duo supporting each other throughout their journeys. “The lines of motherhood really get blurred,” Cynthia explained. “She becomes my best friend, you know, she becomes my confidante, during the whole process.”
Jasmine added: “The thing that’s difficult about medical school is that not everyone truly understands what you go through during those four to five years that you’re there.”
“So having my mum be the person who does understand that was great. You’re just able to rely on each other throughout the entire process.”
Since the first black woman earned a medical degree in the US in 1864, the representation of black doctors did not improve much.
“It’s honestly not very common… Female surgeons, in general, are just uncommon,” Jasmine said.
“It’s not often that I see people that look like me in my field so that’s why it’s so important to us to make sure that we do show our faces and spread our story.”
“When you’re young and you don’t see someone that looks like you doing something that you want to do, when you see other people doing it, you kind of start to think well, maybe these people are inherently somehow better than me.”
“And so, that’s why I think representation matters. It shows young people or even older people that, no, there’s nothing inherently wrong with you, you’re not less intelligent or less capable. You know, you can do it too.”