“Dear Black Girls, you have a place here. Never dime your light for the sake of others. Stand tall in the face of opposition because you are deserving of where you are,” Alexandra Bastiany, the first Black woman in Canada’s medical history to become an Interventional Cardiologist, says as words of encouragement to Black Girls.
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The daughter of Haitian immigrants in Montreal, Alexandra originally intented to become a general surgeon, but realised her fondness for interventional cardiology during the course of her first year of medical school, due to its non-intrusive procedures for the treatment and management of heart impediments.
Her professional path, which spans a total of 15 years of hardwork, ambition and determination, includes studying at the University of Montreal and attaining a Fellowship at the University of Alberta. But this experiences were marred by different obstacles, including racial bigotry and receiving demoralising comments from her mentors. In spite of these issues, she persevered with the aid of her mentors and her determination to defy negative racial stereotypes, which led her to become a proponent for socially conscious care and raising awareness of racial discrimination in medicine.
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