Many years ago, as a child, Everett’s Shakira Fedna watched as a man was beaten outside her home nearly to death, and in the ensuring chaos, she recalls seeing a woman – a doctor – rush to the scene and care for the man, maybe saving his life.
It was with that one event at a young age that Fedna, 19, has embarked on a pre-med pathway at UMass Lowell, and not seeing a lot of women of color or students from Everett in the program, she has relied on a support network initiated by the college called Medical Profession Admission Gap Initiative and Collaboration, or MAGIC, that has helped her adjust and continue on her pathway to that dream that formed long ago.