TCU Burnett School of Medicine grad is first physician in family

When Texas Christian University Burnett School of Medicine student Rebecca Sobolewski was growing up in a Chicago suburb, her mom gave her two career choices.

“We didn’t grow up in the best neighborhood, didn’t have a lot,” Sobolewski said. “My Mommy looked at me and my sister and said I need a nice car and a nice house one day, so one of you is going to be a doctor and one of you is going to be a lawyer.”

Sobolewski’s older sister became a lawyer, now she is a doctor.

“It’s so exciting and a little bit nerve-wracking being the first physician in my family,” Sobolewski said.

There are few professions where someone’s life is in your hands, so medical school comes with a certain amount of pressure.

“Especially when you’re one of the only ones, right,” Sobolewski pointed out. “So being the only Black woman in my class, there was a lot of pressure to pass all the exams and do well.”

Sobolewski is the third Black woman to graduate from the TCU Burnett School of Medicine. This year is the relatively new medical school’s second graduating class.

According to the National Institutes of Health, Black women make up 4.6% of medical school students and just 2% of working physicians.

“When you walk into the hospital is when you really start to feel it,” Sobolewski said. “For instance, I have not had one single Black emergency medicine preceptor. So in my field, I haven’t had one single doctor that has trained me that is a Black person.”

Sobolewski said representation matters because it can lead to better care.

“When you have a physician population that is actually representative of a patient population there’s going to be so much more understanding,” Sobolewski said. “Because when you walk into the room; that’s not just a patient, that’s your aunt, right? That’s your community you grew up in that reminds you of somebody that you know.”

Sobolewski has family flying to Fort Worth to watch her hooding ceremony on Friday, including her mother.

“She is over the moon! I think she’s probably more excited than I am,” Sobolewski said laughing. “I actually made up a little fake degree to give her because she should be walking that stage, too!”

For the future medical students who see Sobolewski get her degree, she has one wish. “I want them to be able to see that when I walk across that stage that it’s possible.”